Toyota's "Map on Demand" a world's first
It's not an absurd idea in the slightest. In fact, we're surprised to hear nobody has done this yet, but Toyota is claiming its new Map on Demand service is a world first, and who are we to argue? Due to the large volume of data and detail in a traditional map pack, updates are usually done about twice a year, meaning high-construction areas can become terribly inaccurate before your maps company gives you a fresh edition. Toyota's solution is to only provide updates to areas relevant to the user: where they live, where they're going and commonly used expressways. The solution involves a pretty major change to the GPS map industry, including how map changes are made and published, but Toyota seems to have its hand in enough of the process to make it happen. Updates are delivered over your home internet connection, cell phone internet or both, routed to Toyota's G-BOOK telematics system, and should be fresh enough to warn you of a closed road or newly opened lane. Toyota will be delivering this "differential map data" to your car -- in Japan only, of course -- this spring.
[Via Far East Gizmos]
