Cellphone centric navigation

I’ve talked about the potential of radar and navigation capabilities on cellphones before, but in Japan it is already happening. Although currently meant for navigation in a city environment, it’s a perfect example of how cellphones are becoming powerful enough to perform such functions. Combine that with the fact that both cellphones and marine instruments are becoming more and more Bluetooth-enabled, so they can communicate wirelessly, and you will realize that we don’t need a dedicated navigation-PC anymore…. Just the monitor.
“Japanese firms Index and Jicoux have developed a navigation system application that runs on 3G GPS phones with digital compasses (which, at the moment, means KDDI’s au service in Japan). It includes the ability to show a “radar display” of the location of nearby friends, places of interest, or bus and train stations useful in getting to your destination. There’s also a B2B aspect to the service in that, as with most web-based map systems, it would be possible to pay to have your business location displayed on the radar.”