LOOVIC Inc. | TechBiz by DCAJ

A navigation and guide service that eliminates the need for maps

This is a smartphone voice application that combines tour guides and guide helpers, digitizing the process to address the shortage of guide personnel. It is a completely new content platform that can be shared like social media, offering high versatility and adaptability to individual needs.
This is a smartphone voice application that combines tour guides and guide helpers, digitizing the process to address the shortage of guide personnel. It is a completely new content platform that can be shared like social media, offering high versatility and adaptability to individual needs.

– Create your own LOOVIC, Voice Navigation & Guide

The map applications we use on a daily basis are convenient navigation systems that display a route to the location and guide you to your destination. Voice guidance has also been used for sightseeing and museums for some time. However, “LOOVIC,” an application that allows users to insert their own voice for navigation, is different from such normal map apps and voice guidance systems. Why bother putting your own voice in? You may be puzzled, but there are a thousand ways to use LOOVIC. Whether it is to help those close to you or as a new form of entertainment, this app is filled with a variety of possibilities. Let’s see what kinds of uses there are for this app.

Case 1: Leisure centers such as zoos and botanical gardens.

The staff of leisure centers can use “LOOVIC” to create a guide that tells about the highlights of the park. All that is required is the application, and no special equipment is needed. Visitors can listen to the guide by scanning the QR code. Since the system is linked to location information, visitors can automatically hear the voice of a staff member when they move to that location, so there is no need to press a number as is the case with audio guides. The content can be updated by the park staff themselves, so the latest seasonal guides can be delivered.

Case 2: Elderly people and those who have difficulty with spatial cognition

There are people who have difficulty remembering directions that would normally take two or three times to remember. LOOVIC” can guide and support people who are not suited to regular map applications, such as the elderly or people who have difficulty with spatial cognition. The voice guidance is tailored to the user’s needs, so that a guide is created exclusively for that person. If a guide is created that provides directions in the voice of a family member or other familiar person, it can provide not only directions, but also a sense of security.

– Case 3: “Place” your voice in a place you have fond memories of.

If you want to tell the beautiful local scenery to visitors, or the history of this place in your own voice as a resident who has actually experienced it. This is a use that gives a sense of warmth, as if someone who visits that place someday will hear your voice and receive your thoughts and feelings. It is also possible to deliver your voice not to someone else, but to a specific person, so that that person can travel the same path that you walked someday, with your voice.

– Large corporations are also paying attention to the various possibilities of LOOVIC.

LOOVIC can be used by both individuals and companies. There will be many possibilities in the field of tourism, and there are also a variety of collaboration partners in the fields of education, nursing care, and regional development. LOOVIC has received various awards, including the CES2023 Omdia Innovation Awards, an exhibition of the world’s latest technologies. LOOVIC was featured in Toyota Times, an on-demand media outlet operated by Toyota Motor Corporation, and has attracted a great deal of attention. LOOVIC, which proposes people-centered technology solutions from a technology world that tends to prioritize efficiency, is attracting interest from all quarters.

FEATURES｜LOOVIC–Allowing Your Voice to Help Loved Ones on Their Travels ｜TOYOTA TIMES

Partners in Future Mobility profiles innovative startups that participated in the Japan Mobility Show 2023. Our third article showcases LOOVIC, a service that supports mobility with personally recorded route guidance. #TOYOTATIMES

– Opposite direction of normal map apps, the importance of taking the time and effort.

If you have read this far, you already understand that “LOOVIC” is not a map application used by busy workers to get to their meeintg place. Rather than a destination that is reached by looking only at the screen of a smartphone, “LOOVIC” is to be used while listening to someone else’s voice and enjoying the scenery of the area. And for someone else, someone needs to input the voice. The original content that you create while thinking of the person listening to you will probably reach their heart more than a perfect AI-based navigation system or guide.