Hexagon’s Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial division has released for Android defense applications. The platform is designed for the development of mobile applications for dismounted soldiers in the field.
With LuciadCPillar, developers can build applications with 2D and 3D views. It features military symbology and supports many geospatial data types including vector data, raster data, elevation data, point clouds and 3D meshes. It has the same capabilities found in desktops, in-vehicle and browser applications built with LuciadLightspeed, LuciadCPillar and LuciadRIA.
The platform offers capabilities to match high-resolution screens, graphic processing units and multi-core processors including the ability to display 3D data in mobile applications. LuciadCPillar supports ARM processors and an application programming interface, which aligns with the Android developer experience.
Impact, a French system integrator, partnered with Hexagon to test LuciadCPillar and will integrate it into its Delta Suite product, which is used by the French Special Operations Command.
LuciadCPillar is part of Luciad 2022.1, which is available now globally.
Taoglas is launching a new RF Filter division specifically developed for Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile applications.
Taoglas, a provider of IoT and M2M antenna products, made the announcement at at Mobile World Congress Americas this week.
Taoglas aims to provide high-quality, small-form-factor, cost-effective and easy-to-implement RF filters.
The new filter division will feature a range of off-the-shelf filters for a variety of applications, including filters for emerging license-free bands used for IoT, L1/L2 and L1/L5 GNSS applications.
Taoglas can also work with customers to develop custom filter solutions.
“Today’s mobile and IoT applications require high-performance RF filters, in a form factor and cost that makes sense for our customers,” said Dermot O’Shea, co-CEO at Taoglas. “We’ve seen the frustrations our own engineers have had in quickly sourcing reliable components for active antenna and electronic designs. Taoglas is eliminating that frustration with its own filter division, applying the same principles for success that we’ve demonstrated with our antenna business.”
The filters are manufactured in Taoglas’ purpose-built production facilities in Taiwan, and shipped immediately anywhere worldwide. Support is available from any Taoglas location globally. Filters are available through regular Taoglas sales and distribution channels.
A number of large companies are making bids to acquire Nokia’s HERE digital mapping company. At least one analyst believes the interest is fueled by future autonomous ambitions. In other location industry news, a new location-based analytics product hits the market.
Signaling the need to control a major location industry segment, Nokia’s HERE digital mapping company is attracting big-name suitors for as much as $3 billion. According to published reports, the bidders include Uber, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Chinese search engine giant Baidu — and even Facebook.
However, at least one industry insider believes the hoopla for HERE, which is found in a majority of in-dash navigation units worldwide, is being driven by the continued interest in autonomous vehicles.
“Google has been openly working on the concepts required to support AVs for several years and Apple has a skunkworks where they are working on prototypes for an Apple AV. The German luxury car makers realize the bind they could find themselves in — as do all vehicle manufacturers — if Google is able to produce a popular AV-oriented OS that is preferred by owners of AVs over an OS produced by the vehicle manufacturers,” said Mike Dobson, TeleMapics principal, who writes about the topic at www.telemapics.com. “I suspect that Google is really focused on an operating system for autonomous vehicles that can help promote Google’s interest in advertising, but will produce a prototype car to show how the system should work, although avoiding large-scale production. Apple, on the other hand, may be considering producing a vehicle that runs on their OS. So while Google is regarded as a more immediate concern for the automobile industry, the company may also become the vehicle manufacturers’ best friend and trusted supplier, if Apple enters the autonomous vehicle market as a vehicle manufacturer.”
While Dobson believes Uber, which bought mapping company deCarta in March, is playing with fire by bidding for HERE, he says they are clearly concerned what the world of autonomous vehicles might mean for their business. “Within 10 years, Uber will be producing its own fleet of AVs. While owning a map company might be beneficial to them, they might be better off licensing map databases,” he said.
Facebook Not a Good Match
Dobson said that while Facebook, rumored to also be a bidder, can afford the billions to buy HERE, there does not appear to be a significant strategic advantage for them in doing so. “While (Facebook) is experimenting with geographical databases, it is unclear to me that they would significantly benefit from owning a spatial database, as opposed to licensing the data, although their concern may be driven by a fear that the data might not be freely licensed after the company is acquired, say, by a competitor,” he said.
The problem with the automotive consortium and Uber that have surfaced in the quest for HERE, the company once called Navteq — and acquired by Nokia for more than $8 billion in 2007 — is that none are data companies — with the background and nuances of creating spatial databases,” Dobson said.
“From my perspective, that means none of the current bidders are ideal candidates to manage the company. Like Nokia, these companies may not actually know what to do when they win the auction,” he said. “During the eight years that Nokia has owned HERE, the mapping asset has been devalued and improperly positioned for growth. I do not know how much more mismanagement the team at HERE can take before the company and its navigation databases becomes non-competitive.”
Dobson says that Uber, Facebook, Baidu, and the German car manufacturers do not yet understand the expense of upgrading and maintaining HERE’s mapping database for the demands of the autonomous vehicle market. “Buying HERE for ‘internal’ use only would be a significant mistake, so any potential buyer is going to need to continue to sell data to all channels, even those owned by potential competitors. This simple reality will cause any of the buyers who have surfaced so far a lot of heartburn in the future,” he said.
Dobson says the clear winner for the future of HERE is the German automotive consortium of Audi, BMW and Mercedes, with its reported alliance with Baidu. “I do not regard this combo as an optimal owner, but the mix of interest may help keep HERE at the forefront of producing high-accuracy navigation databases — although the extent of map coverage may be a casualty of this ownership team,” he said.
New Location Analytics Product Hits the Market
A new location analytics product is hitting the market in a more and more crowded indoor-positioning field. The differentiator, says Cloud4Wi about its new Fogsense product, is that the unit constitutes the location industry’s smallest Internet of Things Wi-Fi device that is tailored to retail outlets, coffee shops, restaurant chains and shopping malls with presence analytics and location-based services.
The device, which contains Broadcom’s WICED chip, will feature Bluetooth low-power technology in the new version in (the fourth quarter), said Elena Briola, Cloud4Wi’s chief marketing officer. The new BLE version will enable Apple iBeacon and location-aware mobile applications.
“We not only track the position of visitors and customers in the venue, we aggregate this data in valuable analytics and we provide applications to deliver targeted localized services based on these analytics,” she said.
The device is also USB-powered, allowing businesses to scale its integration with both single and small venues, where Fogsense receives power from laptops and point-of-sale (POS) devices, the company said.
“Customers increasingly expect Wi-Fi to be available wherever they go. Businesses can collect valuable data about their customers, better understand their behavior and deliver more personalized marketing initiatives,” Briola said.
Like many location analytics companies, Cloud4Wi believes the new product will enable businesses to design push-targeted, localized marketing and advertising messages based on an assessment of the customer’s behavior at the venue.
The company evokes the much-quoted ABI Research statistics that more than 1 million location retail deployments will occur by 2020.
Tractor rollovers are the leading cause of death among farmers and claim about 250 lives each year, according to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). These accidents are deadly because they often occur far away from farmers’ homes or roads and they may be unable to reach a phone to call for help. Now, University of Missouri researchers have developed an application for smartphones that uses GPS systems to locate farmers who have rolled their tractors.
The app, called VRPETERS (Vehicle Rollover Prevention Education Training Emergency Reporting System), uses sensors and GPS capability built into smartphones that can detect rollovers. Once the app detects a rollover, it sends an automatic emergency e-mail and phone message with the coordinates of the accident location to family or emergency responders.
“The tractor is the main power source for field operations, and tractor rollover accidents have been killing people since the beginning of their use in agricultural production,” said Bulent Koc, assistant professor of agricultural systems management at MU and developer of the app. “More and more farmers are using their smartphones to monitor weather or calculate production inputs while operating machinery. Since they already have their phones with them, installing VRPETERS could help save lives.”
Data from the NIOSH show that one out of every 10 tractor operators will roll a tractor at least once. NIOSH also notes that only half of the 4.7 million tractors on U.S. farms have rollover protection. In order to minimize false alarm rollovers on the app, Koc and his research assistant Bo Liu designed a device that must be attached to the tractor. This device helps calculate the stability characteristics of the tractor and will provide a warning to the driver when the tractor approaches its rollover point.
“Many farmers think they can jump out of their tractors in the event of a rollover, but this isn’t the case usually,” Koc said. “Side rollovers can occur in just three-quarters of a second and most people need a second or more to react to an event. So, VRPETERS can benefit farmers when a rollover occurs because they often can’t reach their phones to make an emergency call.”
VRPETERS can benefit more than just farmers, as the app also can be used on construction vehicles, trucks, snowmobiles, military vehicles, riding lawnmowers and all-terrain vehicles.
In addition to the rollover device installed on tractors and other dangerous equipment, Koc and Liu designed another device that can be used with VRPETERS. This device can be installed on vehicles and can be used as a backup to stream data to a smartphone or tablet. “With this additional device, parents or fleet managers can obtain real time data on how machines are being used,” Koc said. “If the device detects improper operation, an intervention can occur before an accident happens.”
Initial testing of VRPETERS was done using a remote-controlled model tractor. Once fully tested on a standard tractor, Koc and Liu will look for an industry partner to market the app.
Snap Secure, Snap MyLife, Inc.’s cloud-service mobile and personal security application for consumers and families, is now available in the United Kingdom via an automatic carrier billing option provided by mobile payment and analytics leader Bango. The agreement allows Snap MyLife, Inc. to deliver convenience and peace of mind to consumers and their families throughout the UK.
With thousands of mobile devices lost or stolen in the UK each year, mobile security is a concern. The issue is compounded by the fact that new technological capabilities mean people are increasingly relying on their mobile devices to conduct daily activities involving sensitive information, such as banking and personal communications. This leaves them vulnerable if that information falls into the wrong hands when a device is lost or stolen.
Snap Secure addresses these issues and more by providing a broad range of protection for smartphones, including backing up and restoring data; preventing viruses, spyware and spam; protecting and managing privacy; tracking and locating family members in real-time; locating and remotely controlling lost or stolen phones and tablets; and wiping data remotely.
To illustrate just some of Snap Secure’s comprehensive security features, the application enables users to remotely control a lost or stolen smartphone by locking the device to protect important data and contact information or wiping all data contained in the phone to prevent unauthorized access. Snap Secure leverages smartphone GPS technology to help parents keep tabs on their child’s whereabouts by tracking their mobile device location on a map via their web dashboard. Parents can also use the Snap Secure Geo-fence to establish virtual geographic boundaries for their children and receive alerts when a child leaves the area or does not arrive at a specified location within a designated time period.
The Snap MyLife, Inc.-Bango partnership gives UK mobile device users a quick, convenient way to access this critical protection. UK customers can purchase Snap Secure for Android phones and tablets and BlackBerry phones. Fees for the service are added to the users’ monthly mobile phone bill.
“Protecting personal data and securing mobile devices is a concern everywhere as people become more dependent on their technology assets,” said Jiren Parikh, President and CEO of Snap MyLife, Inc. “We’re excited to work with Bango to offer consumers in the UK a complete family and data security solution.”
“Snap Secure offers UK consumers the peace of mind they need to confidently use their mobile devices without concerns about theft, loss or viruses,” noted Ray Anderson, CEO and Founder of Bango. “We’re looking forward to working with Snap MyLife, Inc. to provide customers with a frictionless payment experience, via their mobile operator.”
Snap Secure has been downloaded more than 2 million times. In addition to the UK, Snap Secure is currently available in Italy, Spain, and the U.S. with additional global market launches in process.
