ANOTHER INNOVATION BY NAVTECH -- SDAL SPEAKS EIGHT LANGUAGES

Posted On:
May 4, 1998

DETROIT, MI, May 4, 1998 - Continuing its long-standing tradition of industry-making firsts, Navigation Technologies Corporation (NavTech), the premier supplier of route guidance map databases for both North America and Europe, announced another exciting innovation today. Following its October, 1997 introduction of SDAL--a suite of technologies that for the first time enables the same CD-ROM to be used interchangeably in any compliant navigation system --NavTech announced new SDAL functionality that enables navigation product developers to create unique, high quality, driving directions in eight languages using recorded voice technology.

Choosing from a total of over 5500 phrases in eight languages (Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, British English, American English) and two voices (male and female), navigation product developers can generate unique, high quality driving directions (i.e. "turn right ahead in 15 meters") for explicating audio directions to their end users.

While maintaining the benefits of the interchangeable CD-ROM approach, NavTech's method to providing the voice phrases enables:

• High Quality Output - NavTech employed native speakers for natural sounding, professionally recorded output in ADPCM format.
• Ability to Differentiate - developers can choose whether or not to use this function, which voices to use, which languages to use, and can build their own, unique library of messages by stringing together NavTech's phrases.
• Quick and Easy Development - NavTech provides SDAL users with a tool to help design, test and listen to their message list as well as an API that allows decompression of the ADPCM format to 16 bit linear PCM.

"This is part of a long history of innovation for NavTech," said Amy Hart Phillips, Navigation Technologies Corporation. "This latest enhancement to SDAL brings more functionality and features to developers of navigation systems who want to take advantage of SDAL's interoperability as well as differentiate their products. Eight languages are just the beginning. As our coverage areas expand and the market grows, we will expand this list."

More About SDAL

To date, the lack of a common industry standard has required developers to create their own proprietary CD-ROM formats, incompatible with one another. This has resulted in numerous CD-ROM versions of the same map being produced to work with different manufacturers' products, complicating distribution and confusing end-users. SDAL provides the industry with a single solution to simplify distribution and logistics, and stimulate end-user demand.

Leading players in the automotive and in-vehicle navigation industries including Daimler-Benz, Renault, Pioneer Electronic Corporation, Mannesmann VDO, Valeo Electronics and Magellan Systems welcomed the initial release of SDAL last October as a positive step towards achieving mass market penetration of vehicle navigation systems. NavTech expects the launch of as many as five new SDAL-based navigation products in the next 12 months.

NavTech created SDAL because it believes only an open, widely understood specification can achieve interoperability. To ensure that this openness is achieved, NavTech has committed to publishing the paper specification in mid-1998 for anyone to adopt, including its competitors.