Android Car Navigation System In Your Dashboard (ArcherMind CNS)
Google Navigation is awesome – there is no doubt about it – and having your mobile phone double as your GPS Navigation device is amazing on a number of different levels. But if you could have an in-car navigation system that was based on Android and embedded in your dashboard, would you be interested? Archermind is hoping you answered “Yes” as the company has just shown off this exact technology at the Embedded Technology 2009 Trade Show in Yokohama City, Japan.
There have been some pretty awesome articles about Android In Your Car and its only amount of time before that barrier comes crashing down. Will Archermind be the ones to knock it over?
The ArcherMind Android Nav system has a 7-inch WVGA (800×480) display, Marvell processor, 3G, Wi-Fi, hard drive, SD slot, Music player, SMS and more. There aren’t any plans that this will reach North America anytime soon if at all, but ArcherMind moves quickly – Electricpig points out they just started work on this in JULY! Pretty insane considering mobile manufacturers who have been pursuing Android a couple years now still haven’t put out their first Android Phone.
Here is the press release:
World’s First Android™ based Car Navigation System Developed
(Demo will be disclosed at ET2009 Yokohama event show)Nanjing, China, November 16, 2009 – ArcherMind Technology (Nanjing) Co., Ltd. today announced that world’s first Android™ based Car Navigation System has been successfully developed in its Nanjing R&D center. This system is aimed for China’s annual 10 million new car market and will provide drivers and passengers a brand new experience in entertainment, navigation, location based service and Internet.
In this Car Navigation System (CNS), ArcherMind combines GPS, 3G, WiFi, Audio/Video with a powerful ARM9 based chipset. In addition to the basic functions of a CNS, ArcherMind has developed special functions as follows:
- Internet Browsing
- Location based services
- Music player
- Video player
- Instant Messaging
- GPS Navigation
- Phone Call
- SMS
- Audio Books
- … …
“We are pleased to announce this new CNS based on Android”, said Jiping Wang, CEO of ArcherMind, “With our strong experience and a large professional development team in Android, we can help our customers to develop all kind of embedded devices based on Android. CNS adds a great a member to our portfolio of Android product category, including smart phone, MID, eBook, etc.”
This new CNS provides “Driver Assistance” function and great pleasure to the passengers to enjoy their time in the car. It works perfectly with a 7’ LCD and touch screen embedded in the dashboard of the car, and can be simply operated by a few buttons. Andriod provides a solid framework in supporting the broad functions, the rich eye-catching user interface and the multiple tasks user can enjoy simultaneously.
“We strongly welcome this announcement, and defer to ArcherMind’s excellent technology”, said Mr. Masataka Miura, Chairman, Open Embedded Software Foundation(OESF), “This ArcherMind’s activity is a perfect model to meet our goal which Android based software technology can be applied into embedded device market. We will work with ArcherMind for future Embedded Master distribution to expand a Standard Frame Work related to Android based Car Navigation Systems”.
With this release of Car Navigation System based on Android, ArcherMind is able to provide carmakers an advanced system for next generation car infotainment device. ArcherMind is working with a large Chinese carmaker to test the system and new cars equipped with this system are expected to reach the market in Q1, 2010.About ArcherMind
ArcherMind is a renowned leading Embedded Device Software R&D company in China. We have been constantly providing Android™ based software R&D services, and developed several successful products of Smartphone, MID, and eBook. ArcherMind becomes the member of Open Embedded Software Foundation (OESF) since April 2009. We will also participate in ET2009 in OESF booth. ( Nov. 18th – 20th ). ArcherMind is planning to embark key components of the CNS into “Embedded Master”, which OESF is advocating to its “Standard Software Platform for Embedded Device.”
It looks like we can expect Android smartphones, MIDs, eReaders and more from ArcherMind in the future and you won’t hear me complaining. By the way, note the 7-inch screen size of the ArcherMind CNS? This illustrates the differences between Google Navigation on your Motorola Droid and an Android system made specifically for in-car navigation – you wouldn’t carry this thing around in your pocket! That isn’t to say that Google couldn’t create their own 7-inch Google Navigation device… and isn’t preventing anyone else from doing so either. Hmmmmm….
[Via Press Release (PDF)]