Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Help Moves Out of the Dashboard and Into the Phone

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 17:21:04 -0400

TECHNOLOGY 
Help Moves Out of the Dashboard and Into the Phone
By REBECCA FAIRLEY RANEY

Published: October 22, 2003

Jill Connelly for The New York Times
Navigation-ready phones supply answers in text and voice.  

If you have an old cellphone and are lost, you might have a 
conversation that goes like this: "Hi, can you hear me? I'm on Smith 
Street and I missed the turn for the highway. No, I don't see a 
Dunkin' Donuts. Can you hear me?"

But if you have the right cellphone and are lost, you can have a 
conversation in which you dial up a computer that can tell you 
exactly where you are and offer detailed directions, by voice and on 
the screen, as soon as you supply your destination. 

Just as car manufacturers are beginning to install luxury-car 
navigation systems in less expensive models, other companies are 
making such information available not only on cellphones but also on 
hand-held computers and television monitors in cars. 

"We're trying to mimic a person sitting next to you who knows the 
area really well," said Sal Dhanani, a senior director for marketing 
at TeleNav, a navigation service for cellphones. The service was 
released six months ago by Televigation, a company in Sunnyvale, 
Calif. It allows Nextel Communications customers to subscribe to the 
navigation program, which uses Motorola cellphones, for $5.99 a 
month.

Most on-board navigation systems in the aftermarket cost nearly 
$2,000, while those installed by manufacturers vary in cost by the 
dealer. For the TeleNav service, customers' Motorola phones must be 
equipped with Java software and Global Positioning System receivers. 
The phones cost $30 to $100. Navigation time does not count toward 
the customer's allotted minutes.

People who own Hewlett-Packard, Dell or Casio personal digital 
assistants can buy navigation packages for $100 to $500. In some 
cases, customers must buy separate G.P.S. receivers to plug into 
their machines or depend on maps that are on CD's.

Makers of dashboard systems are also making changes to attract more 
buyers. Alpine Electronics of America and Blaupunkt are producing 
color maps, bigger screens, easier menus and better voice 
recognition for spoken commands. One Blaupunkt product, the 
TravelPilot DX-V, can be attached to a car's video system. 
TravelPilot sells, on average, for $1,100 without a monitor; or 
$1,700 with a monitor.

Alpine has been working with Honda and I.B.M. to produce a more 
intuitive voice recognition system. Voice recognition in navigation 
systems has been clunky, industry analysts have said, and the menus 
are complicated. Some systems have been so hard to use, 
manufacturers have removed them from cars.

Honda, however, is pushing the technology into the midlevel market. 
For the 2004 model year, the most sophisticated voice-recognition 
system on the market is in the Honda Accord. That car will join the 
BMW 7 Series, the new Mercedes S-Class and the Infiniti Q45, 
offering systems with voice recognition.

The new voice-recognition system is more tolerant of regional 
accents and easier to learn, said Stephen Witt, the vice president 
for brand marketing at Alpine Electronics.

The systems are trickling down from the luxury market, Mr. Witt 
said, because high-quality features like antilock brakes are now 
standard on most new cars. As a result, Mr. Witt said that for auto 
manufacturers, "in-vehicle content is emerging as a very significant 
part of their business strategies."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/22/automobiles/22RANE.html?ex=1067400000&amp;en=24f3b17c7adc4e7d&amp;ei=5062&amp;partner=GOOGLE

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