use car navigation. 1995: Device called "Mobile Assistant" or short, MASS, produced by Munich-based company ComRoad AG, won the title "Best Product in Mobile Computing" on CeBit by magazine Byte. It offered turn-by-turn navigation via wireless internet connection, with both GPS and speed sensor in the car. 1995: Acura introduced the first hard disk drive-based navigation system in the 1996 RL. 1997: Navigation system using Differential GPS developed as a factory-installed option on the Toyota Prius 1998: First DVD-based navigation system introduced on the Toyota Progres. 2000: The United States made a more accurate GPS signal available for civilian use. 2003: Toyota introduced the first Hard disk drive-based navigation system and the industry's first DVD-based navigation system with a built-in Electronic throttle control 2007: Toyota introduced Map on Demand, a technology for distributing map updates to car navigation systems, developed as the first of its kind in the world 2008: World's first navigation system-linked brake assist function and Navigation system linked to Adaptive Variable Suspension System (NAVI/AI-AVS) on Toyota Crown 2009: With a release of mobile navigation app from Sygic for iOS new era of a mobile device navigation systems had begun gaining in popularity since Technology The road database is a vector map. Street names or numbers and house numbers, as well as points of interest (waypoints), are encoded as geographic coordinates. This enables users to find a desired destination by street address or as geographic coordinates. (See map database management.) Map database formats are almost uniformly proprietary, with no industry standards for satellite navigation maps, although some companies are trying to address this with SDAL (Shared Data Access Library) and Navigation Data Standard (NDS). Map data vendors such as Tele Atlas and Navteq create the base map in a GDF (Geographic Data Files) format, but each electronics manufacturer compiles it in an optimized, usually proprietary manner. GDF is not a CD standard for car navigation systems. GDF is used and converted onto the CD-ROM in the internal format of the navigation system. CDF (CARiN Database Format) is a proprietary navigation map format created by Philips. SDAL is a proprietary map format developed by Navteq, which was released royalty free in the hope that it would become an industry standard for digital navigation maps, has not been very widely adopted by the industry. Vendors who used this format include: Microsoft Magellan Pioneer Panasonic Clarion InfoGation Navigation Data Standard (NDS)