Naver Labs announced that it will release the IVI platform, AWAY, on August 17 through the car sharing company ‘Green Car’. AWAY, which is optimized for personal car environments, is a kind of head-unit display hardware.
Naver Labs and Green Car will work together to install AWAY, starting with 1,000 vehicles this year, and expanding to up to 3,000 vehicles nationwide. In-vehicle infotainment (IVI) technology provides entertainment within vehicles, such as music or audio, as well as information related to driving, such as navigation or other information linked to a mobile device.
Naver Labs has signed an MOU with Green Car for IVI platform integration in April of last year and first released the prototype at the 2017 Seoul Motor Show in March this year. 5 months later, the product was officially launched with the name ‘AWAY’.
Naver Labs designed and manufactured the head unit display with a 24:9 ratio, considering the environment of the vehicle using information systems such as media and navigation, as well as the safety of the driver.
AWAY connects you to Naver ‘Login’, which enables users to enjoy the same experience in any car when they login to the personal account, just like on a smartphone. Green Car users can get directions to the destinations that are pre-stored with Naver accounts and also listen to the music on the user’s Naver music list through the car’s speaker. In addition, users can utilize audio content like AWAY’s exclusive navigation, Naver Music, as well as audio clips and sports radio. Users can also find restaurants and other exact locations through Naver’s broad POI database and its high-accuracy voice recognition technology.
In particular, AWAY focuses on designs that minimize the driver’s distraction. It offers an interface that provides safe and easy access to information or services that drivers need without disturbing the driver’s actions. Important information is displayed simultaneously in a split screen view optimized for the two screens. In addition, functions that are optimized for the car sharing service, which will also be able to analyze the driving pattern of the driver, such as ‘eco-driving’, ‘extension service for the return’ and ‘fare calculation systems’ will be applied as well.
Naver Labs plans to expand its content by co-operating with partners. For example, in the future, it will become possible for AWAY to recognize the schedule registered in the driver’s calendar and act as a virtual secretary, providing nearby restaurant guides and parking reservations by recognizing the intention of the driver.
AWAY is now easily accessible through the use of the Green Car service. Green Car users can choose the car that AWAY is applied to, login to Naver directly in the Green Car app before getting in, and use the AWAY service directly in the vehicle.
Meanwhile, Naver Labs is continuing research on ‘ambient intelligence’ technology in order to recognize and understand users’ actual living environment and situation so it can provide necessary information in a timely manner.
In particular, cars are a space where many people spend long periods of time, so it must also be safe. Naver Labs is studying autonomous driving vehicles and focusing on creating new possibilities for connection between the internal information of the vehicle and the external information of the roads, through the use of the AWAY platform.
AWAY is the first B2C service that Naver Labs launched after it became an independent company from Naver in January this year.
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This article, entitled “IVI platform AWAY released by Naver Labs to work with Green Car”, was written in Korean by Minjung Kim of Platum, edited by AllTechAsia.