A novel navigation system under development at Microsoft aims to tweak users' visual memory with carefully chosen video clips of a route. Developed with researchers from the University of Konstanz in Germany, the software creates video using 360-degree panoramic images of the street that are strung together. Such images have already been gathered by several different mapping companies for many roads around the world. The navigation system, called Videomap, adjusts the speed of the video and the picture to highlight key areas along the route.
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Videomap still provides written directions and a map with a highlighted route. But unlike existing software, such as Google Maps or MapQuest, the system also allows users to watch a video of their drive.
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When given Videomap directions, drivers made the correct turn 80 percent of the time. With a map and text directions, the drivers made the correct turn only 60 percent of the time.
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Arzu Coltekin, a senior researcher at the University of Zurich who works in the Geographic Information Visualization and Analysis Division, finds the work interesting. Some might say that a system such as Videomap isn't necessary because of the proliferation of GPS receivers in cars, but Coltekin notes that it would still be useful for those who bike or walk, which "is quite common in Europe. And when you are walking or biking, often you don't have a GPS." But she says the team needs to come up with a way to automatically identify landmarks.
[Billy] Chen, [a researcher in the MSN Advanced Engineering group], says that Microsoft could use a list of landmarks that is already in its geospatial database, or such a list could perhaps be compiled by users.
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