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Navion promises Forza-like GPS for your car
Have you ever played a racing game and thought, “Man, I wish GPS really worked like that?” Well, happy days are ahead with Navion.
Have you ever played a racing game and thought, “Man, I wish GPS really worked like that?” Well, happy days are ahead. WayRay, founded by Vitaly Ponomarev in 2012, is working on a navigation system called Navion that will take GPS to the next level.
WayRay is no stranger to automobile technology, and is also working on a product called Element that will monitor your driving and offer you detailed statistics based on the results. While this is pretty interesting, it’s nowhere close to as interesting as windshield-projected, holographic GPS.
One of the biggest disadvantages of traditional GPS is that you typically have to take your eyes off of the road to see what’s up. Not so with Navion. Using something fancy called the True Augmented Reality principle, Navion can analyze data and accurately project driving directions directly onto your windshield, making it look like your path is literally going off into the distance. It’s yet to be seen if it will actually work in real world applications, but the technology is there, and other companies have been experimenting with this same type of tech, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
A holographic GPS is nice, but if you’re still having to fiddle with the device, how helpful is it really? WayRay has thought of that, as well, and the Navion can be controlled through voice and gesture. While the gesture aspect seems gimmicky, at best, voice control is definitely the way to go.
The Navion also promises to give users the ability to see who is calling them by popping it up on the windshield and choosing to answer or ignore the call. You’ll also have access to your favorite apps through the Navion app store, meaning that you can see the latest garbage tweets from KnowTechie’s own Kevin Raposo directly on your windshield.
While there is no hard date for the Navion to release, the website states that “we’ll be taking pre-orders soon.” Now, if it will only show me the perfect line like Forza does so I can shave precious seconds off my driving time to Starbucks. Here’s hoping.
