Sony has released a new car navigation system which displays realistic 3D models of the road and buildings to aid the driver in navigating. The new top-of-the-range NV-XYZ 77 also has a 30Gb hard drive and is designed to dock in cradles on the car dashboard and on a PC to download audio and video entertainment and new maps as they become available. Currently, only Tokyo and some other major cities are in this map format but work is underway for other areas too.
The digitisation of all of Japan, much less the rest of the world, must be a time-consuming task - every address is known to the system, so drivers will know what the destination building looks like before they even enter the street.
The touchscreen interface provides a small qwerty keyboard and zooming in and out on the map is gesture-based with drop-down menus.
Three models comprise the range, priced at JPY155,400, 176,400, and 207,900 yen respectively.