 |
In-Dash Navigation
In-dash navigation systems have continued to struggle for broad adoption over the years for several reasons. As a luxury item in a luxury vehicle, the consumer experience is inconsistent with the cost of the accessories and features of the vehicle the system is installed in. From the time the car is driven away, the map data in the navigation system is often obsolete and out of date. With updates dependent on replacing the entire database by the actual user, the database may never be updated or only infrequently. The results are navigation products and services that lack the relevance and reliability that would move the systems into the category of “must have” versus “nice to have”.
RELEVANT AND RELIABLE DATA WILL DRIVE BROADER ADOPTION
A recent emergency in the San Francisco Bay Area brought the weaknesses of existing navigation technologies sharply into focus. An early morning truck fire caused a partial road collapse on one of the major westbound on-ramps to the often congested and heavily traveled San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Local media covering the fire, the collapse and the resulting chaotic commutes, had a comedic field day for days following the event by reporting on how useless their own navigation systems had been during and after the event. Available systems lacked relevant and reliable data that recognized the problem or could even offer a route around the problem area.
USER REQUIREMENTS ARE EVOLVING EVEN FURTHER
Manufacturers have also sought to deepen the end-user experience beyond map quality, by adding more “point of interest” (POI) data which had greatly increased storage demands. In addition, new features such as MP3 data, Bluetooth capability and video add the burden of even greater “user-generated” storage demand. In this scenario, application content competes with user-generated content for available storage, driving up the system cost, lowering overall performance and increasing the overall footprint and cost.
ADVANCED COMPRESSION TECHNOLOGY ENABLES A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT APPROACH
WindSpring’s patented Data Miniaturization Technology (DMT) miniaturizes large amounts of data and reduces the overall data footprint. Yet unlike compression, DMT allows the data to retain full usability in the miniaturized state and eliminates the need for any file decompression. At its most basic level, this allows more map data to fit on fewer DVDs - A significant benefit whether the DVDs are given to the owner at the time of purchase or as a subsequent update. At a higher level, this technology provides increased storage space for user generated data on hard disk based systems.
Advanced compression technology also uniquely enables ‘Edit in Place’ capability (for the delivery of unexpected data changes) and ‘Update in Place’ capability (for the delivery of scheduled or regular data changes). This allows in-dash navigation system manufacturers to update data incrementally, meaning map and other relevant data updates can be applied as needed without requiring the replacement of the entire database.
CUSTOMER STORIES
Alpine Electronics Integrates WindSpring Advanced Compression Technology for In-dash Navigation Systems for Honda
|
 |
