Hitachi, Tilcon software team up for automotive and mobile devices

The Embedded Business Group of Hitachi America, Ltd. and Tilcon Software Ltd. recently announced they have teamed up to develop a wide array of technological reference designs. Together, their technologies will help manufacturers in the automotive and mobile markets bring devices such as enhanced GPS systems and on-board entertainment consoles to end-users faster and at lower cost, according to a news release.

For instance, on-board automotive GPS systems in the near future will use more sophisticated search capabilities to enable drivers to find, say, “the nearest gas station on the right-side of the road” or “the closest Italian restaurant” all via a simple, reliable and easy-to-execute interface. With mobile devices such as MP3 players, these extended search and improved interfaces will enable users to look for “songs similar to the one I’m listening to” or create instant playlists of songs “like” this one.

This ability to let users “search the way they think” is the fundamental principle of Entier, an embedded Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) that helps developers create robust search functions for devices such as GPS systems. Tilcon, meanwhile, provides developers the ability to configure an easy-to-understand, easy-to-navigate GUI through its Interface Development Suite at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional code-based GUIs making the whole process faster, more reliable and safer.

“Today’s consumers require mobile devices that provide them the content they want in a quick and efficient manner,” said Steven King, vice president of sales and marketing and deputy general manager, Hitachi EBG. “Tilcon’s consumer-centric approach to user interface development has made it easier for us to help our customers design innovative visual interfaces in mobile devices, which ultimately enhance the consumer experience by enabling them to ‘search the way they think.’”

Says Prosanto Sarkar, CEO, Tilcon: “The explosion of mobile content — music, video, photos, location-based information — has made it even more imperative for consumers to have easy access to the information they want. The ease with which our GUI development tools integrate with applications using Entier’s embedded RDBMS offers a clear advantage to developers wanting to offer improved function and capabilities, faster and safer user execution with new screens and flexible interfaces. The combination of our technologies offers clear cost and time-to-market advantages for developers of a variety of consumer devices, from automotive navigation systems to mobile handsets.”

Hitachi EBG markets and sells the Entier embedded database for a variety of embedded applications that take advantage of the ever increasing convergence of data in mobile devices for automotive, digital home and mobile environments.