KDDI Corp, Navitime Japan Co Ltd and Toyota Motor Corp announced March 23, 2009, that they developed a platform to send GPS and other data from mobile phones to car navigation systems via Bluetooth.
This is the first time that Navitime Japan and Toyota have announced their collaboration. As a starter, the companies will begin a service that allows users to transmit their GPS data used for "EZ Navi Walk," Navitime Japan's route guidance service for KDDI's handsets, to Toyota's car navigation systems.
The service will be available for Toyota's car navigation systems to be released in the first half of 2009 and later. As car navigation system manufacturers, Aisin AW Co Ltd, Panasonic Corp and Fujitsu Ten Ltd, for example, have indicated their intention to make their products compatible with the service, Toyota said. The service will be available for any handsets that incorporate a Bluetooth module and EZ Navi Walk.
"By the time we start the service, about 20 kinds of handsets are expected to be compatible with the service," KDDI said.
In respect to the goal of each company, Toyota said, "it is to have various content providers and car navigation system manufacturers use this platform and expand applications of car navigation systems." Navitime Japan aims "to improve the convenience of EZ Navi Walk and increase the number of its users." And KDDI expects "to enhance the value of au handsets by boosting the value of using EZ Navi Walk."
The new platform features an authentication capability so that it transmits information only to car navigation systems that are registered.
"We limited the receivers of information so that content providers that own rights to the information can feel safe to use the platform," Toyota said. KDDI set up a dedicated server for the authentication capability. Registered data in the dedicated server includes which car navigation system to transmit data to, etc.
"We limited receivers of information so that content providers that own rights to the information can feel safe to use the platform," Toyota explained.
KDDI set up a dedicated server for the authentication capability. The server contains data such as information on car navigation systems used as receivers.
To use this platform, users need to download an application that enables their mobile phones to transmit information. Specifically, data is transmitted as follows.
First, a user searches for a destination, for example, using EZ Navi Walk, and the result is displayed on the mobile phone. And the screen shows a menu to send the information to a car navigation system. When the menu is selected, the application starts to run and accesses KDDI's dedicated server from the handset.
The dedicated server determines whether it is possible to transmit the information to the car navigation system. If it is possible, the application sends the information to the car navigation system using Bluetooth. There will be no additional fee to use the service, according to Navitime Japan.
The service to be launched in the first half of 2009 supports only one-way transmission of GPS data from a handset to a car navigation system. But KDDI said, "We are intending to realize two-way communication (between a car navigation system and a handset) as well."
It took about a year to develop the platform. KDDI and Navitime Japan developed the authentication capability used to transmit data from a handset to a car navigation system, the application to send information, a format of transmitted data, etc. Toyota, on the other hand, developed a system to process the received information on the car navigation side.
"It took quite a while for us to deal with rights to information, especially that sent from a handset to a car navigation system, and to develop the authentication capability based on it," Navitime Japan said.
Navitime Japan is running the "Passenger Seat Navi" automotive route guidance service. But "the new service will not compete with it because Passenger Seat Navi is a service that is primarily used by people who do not own a car navigation system," the company said.
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