Ford Motor Co. is going all out at the upcoming 2008 International CES show (don't worry, Orbitcast will be there in full force with live daily coverage as well), and the auto manufacturer will be flexing its technological muscle with several new products on display.

Ford will be having its largest presence ever at CES, showing off both the Ford SYNC and Sirius Travel Link among other technologies (like THX, Dolby, Gracenote, and Sony-branded audio systems).

Sirius Travel Link is set to appear first on the 2009 Lincoln MKS (pictured), and then will roll it out on other vehicles throughout the second half of 2008. The system will be standard on Ford's next-gen navigation system and will be offered with six-months of service on multiple Ford, Lincoln and Mercury.
[Press Release]

As for Ford SYNC, the folks at Ford sent me some interesting updates on how the well system is being received by consumers. A few of their findings include…

• Nearly 80 percent of owners admit SYNC has “exceeded or greatly exceeded” expectations
• Over 90 percent of owners would recommend SYNC to a friend
• Over 50 percent of owners rated SYNC as “very easy” to use; over 80 percent rated the system “easy or very easy”
• Dealership personnel are doing the job as well: over 80 percent of owners noted sales people showed adequate knowledge of SYNC.

Very interesting. I suspect that satellite radio would have a similar response though, anecdotally, I wouldn't say dealership personnel are very knowledgeable about either Sirius or XM. The "cool factor" seems to have diminished over the years.

(And, you know what would be a big injection of "cool factor" for satellite radio? The voice-recognition interface by VoiceBox we saw over two-years ago. XM must be pretty annoyed over the delays in implementing that feature... I know I would be.)