One company pushing the benefits of hands-free cellphones is Ford Motor Company. The Detroit automaker announced that it will offer the Cellport 3000 with Voice Command, as an option on most of its vehicles by the middle of next year. Designed by Cellport Systems of Boulder, Colo., the system will allow any cellphone to be enhanced with voice activated capabilities, thus allowing drivers to operate their cellphone while keeping both hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.

The new Cellport 3000 product uses speaker-independent voice recognition, enabling any driver to use simple English commands to dial or answer calls on their cellphone, without having to look or touch the phone. The systems docking station and phone-specific Pocket Adapters accommodate cellphones of virtually any make or model. This means that a driver could dock, for example, their WAP-enabled phone used for business communications or their GSM model used for only personal calls, without the expense of installing different adaptor card kits to accommodate each phone.

"Ford Motor Company is excited to offer the Cellport 3000 with Voice Command as the only universal, hands-free system that provides consumers with the added flexibility to use their own brand of cellphone, " said Janine Bay, managing director, Global Vehicle Personalization, Automotive Consumer Services Group for Ford Motor Company. "Cellport will work with Wingcast, Ford’s telematics venture with Qualcomm, to develop future technologies for our customers."

Cellport’s universal plug-and-play, enhanced cellphone solution will be available in the Ford Taurus, Mercury Sable, Lincoln Town Car sedans, and Ford Windstar minivans in the fall.