Hyundai MNSOFT, a vehicle infotainment company under Hyundai Motor that specializes in navigation, black boxes, location-based services and telematics, has developed a new technology delivering incremental updates of the latest maps to navigation systems in moving cars, the company said Thursday.

The technology is based on tethering using a mobile phone as a Wi-Fi network host. Users can hook up their navigation systems to the wireless network for map updates.

In particular, Hyundai MNSOFT developed and applied a mobile database management system, which significantly reduces the file size, meaning it takes less than a minute to download the updates via the LTE (4G) mobile network. After the download, the update itself also takes less time to install, the company said.

In addition, users can access the navigation system even while it is updating. Once the update is complete, they can use the updated database immediately after rebooting the system.

Several companies in Japan and Europe have attempted to develop similar solutions, but have yet to be successful.

(jylee@heraldcorp.com)