GPS World

Author: Janice Partyka

  • Skyhook, Philips Lifeline Develop Location Platform for Emergency Response

    Skyhook and Philips Lifeline have announced a collaboration to incorporate Skyhook’s hybrid location positioning platform into Philips’ Lifeline GoSafe mobile personal response services. Skyhook’s hybrid location service will be part of a suite of locating technologies used with the new GoSafe system and designed to help provide the call center with the location information needed to support locating of users in the event of an emergency.

    “Accurate location information is of critical value to ensuring the quick dispatch, arrival and delivery of what is often life-saving assistance,” noted Rob Goudswaard of Philips Home Monitoring. “After reviewing the market, we concluded that Skyhook’s location network and technology capabilities were consistent with our requirements for enabling timely and accurate response.”

    “If an individual experiences a fall or other emergency, quickly getting help to the right location is of vital importance,” said Michael Shean of Skyhook. “Skyhook is proud to partner with Lifeline, the leading medical alert service, in order to enhance the safety and care that Lifeline provides to all of its customers.”

  • Will Fragmentation Hurt Location Business?

    Get out of the way, GPS. Wi-Fi is elbowing in on the location game. Wi-Fi operators are tracking people and offering retailers and marketers access to customers’ behavior and location. Traffic patterns emitted by smartphone Wi-Fi signals let network operators keep tabs on what shoppers are doing. Heat maps are being created with data from Wi-Fi points to map out aggregated customer behavior. Nearbuy Systems offers stores software that will let them track the website that a shopper is viewing, overlaid by where the shopper is within the store. However, beware of companies’ hyped up claims on indoor location. Another worry is the deployment of proprietary location systems which reduce overall usefulness. And some offerings are simply PowerPoint aspirations. In other news, Apple and Google are kings of the hill; in-vehicle mapping belongs to Nokia; and location privacy of a different sort.

    Fragmented Indoor Location. If proprietary indoor location systems are developed, the market will be hampered. Ben Rodilitz of Level8 noted that, while attending GPS Wireless last March, he was bemused by the excitement regarding indoor location as manifested in a number of one-off, proprietary systems. If Home Depot used its own system, an airport used another, and a shopping mall implemented a third, ubiquitous indoor location would be problematic. “I know companies like Qualcomm, Broadcom, and SiRF/CSR were building competing platforms; one would hope this is a vehicle for best-of-breed choices for service providers,” says Rodilitz. I am glad to see the formation of the In-Location Alliance and the players who are supporting it.”

    Other Complications. The nuts and bolts of indoor location aren’t easy peasy. “For detailed location pinpointing in places like malls, a high density of Wi-Fi radios need to be deployed and it isn’t super cheap to do so,” says Joseph DeStasio of Boingo Wireless. Stores may want to deploy a denser Wi-Fi system than in the outer mall. But it can be a clunky transition between two different Wi-Fi systems. DeStasio estimates that true mobile retail location-based advertising/couponing at malls is still 18 months away.

    Mapping in Vehicles. Nokia may be battered, but the mapping it acquired years ago from its acquisition of Navteq is shining bright. Companies have long fought over “ownership” of the in-dash navigation market, and Navteq lords over the market, powering four out of five systems. Nokia has deals with many car makers, including BMW, Hyundai, Mercedes, and Volkswagen, as well as with Pioneer and Garmin.

    Wireless Data Privacy and Mooching. There is always an interesting mobile location privacy case. In Pennsylvania, police obtained a warrant to search the house where child pornography was being downloaded. Police determined that the offender was a neighbor who had been free-loading on the house’s wireless Internet. The suspect was found with Moocherhunter, an app to identify wireless moochers. The suspect argued that police needed a warrant to use the app to locate him. The court ruled that he “could have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the signal he was sending to or receiving” from the wireless router.

    More on Wi-Fi. Towerstream is building wholesale Wi-Fi access points across some urban regions, including Manhattan, with 1,000 access spots arranged in a giant dense honeycomb across the Big Apple. Before you equate this with previous municipal wireless disasters, know that these networks are several times fasters and don’t involve local government.

    Towerstream is granting users four hours use with no charge if the user will interact with a location specific advertisement. These deals may be targeted to within dozens of feet of the user. Since service over Wi-Fi doesn’t count against U.S. mobile data limits, usage is particularly appealing to 18-34 year olds, who may be wallet constrained and open to viewing location-based ads in exchange for streaming video at high speeds.

    Oligopoly! Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS continue to wipe the floor with their competition. Together they controlled 87.9 percent of the U.S. smartphone market in October, according to comScore. Android ended October with 53.6 percent nationwide smartphone share, increasing 1.4 percentage points over July. iOS grew its U.S. market share from 33.4 percent in July to 34.3 percent in October, a 0.9 percent improvement.

    Tweet This. Use of social media and social networking is growing rapidly. Consumers continue to spend more time on social networks than on any other category of site—roughly 30 percent of total time online via mobile, reports Nielsen and NM Incite. Facebook remains the top social network, followed by Twitter and Blogger, but new social media sites continue to emerge.

    Foursquare Wants Money. The tepid, if not poor, performances of social media IPOs has made investors skittish. The fates of Facebook, Zynga and GroupOn stocks have weighed heavily on this category. Foursquare, which pioneered location check-ins and is now succeeding with target location couponing, is having difficulty attracting added investment, reports the Wall Street Journal. Foursquare counts more than 25 million registered users, with only about 8 million accessing the app monthly. Some investors believe the company is moving too slowly to monetize.

  • License Plate Geo-Tracking: We Know Where You’ve Been

    Janice Partyka
    Janice Partyka

    It’s all about knowing where people are located. The government and private companies are taking hundreds of millions of geo-coded photos of license plates creating huge databases of where you’ve been. Meanwhile, hyper local mobile ads don’t work when ad networks sometimes receive grossly inaccurate locations of targeted consumers. Xad has developed a way to evaluate and score the accuracy of location positions they get from publishers. Also, mobile ad spending may reach $2.6 billion by year’s end, and Nokia is fighting back against rivals with a new mapping solution for Apple users and automating 3D mapping collection through a purchase of Earthmine. Keep reading for details.

    License Plate Snapshots. There hasn’t been much of an outcry over privacy from a huge location tracking operation that doesn’t require consent of the subject. Hundreds of millions of geo-coded photos are being taken of license plates throughout the country. These databases are being created by private companies and the government who use vehicle-mounted cameras. Records include a photo of the vehicle, license plate numbers/letters, time and location. Over two years the Riverside California police have collect two million unique license plate pictures using 49 camera-equipped vehicles. A citizen filed a California Public Record Act request and received a report containing 112 images of his cars. In some of the pictures he can identify car occupants and even the clothes they are wearing.

    Private companies that started photographing license plates were initially in the business of repossessing vehicles. With a mounted license plate camera, they drive as many miles as possible through back alleys, parking lots and streets. An alert sounds when a license plate matches the repossession database. Some of these companies are evolving to focusing solely on license plate data collection and have gathered hundreds of millions of photographs. One of the companies, MVTrac , claims to have geo-coded photos of the majority of U.S. registered vehicles.

    The data can be used for ill purposes. It can show who may be present at a political gathering, parked at a rehab center, or located at a cancer treatment center. In 1998 a police officer in Washington D.C. pled guilty for extorting owners of vehicles parked at a gay bar. The databases will grow. The Department of Homeland Security has provided more than $50 million in federal grants to police for more cameras.

    A Drop in the Advertising Bucket. Advertisers will pay out $2.6 billion for ads on phones and tablets in 2012, predicts eMarketer. This is a small fraction of total ad revenue, less than two percent of advertisers’ overall spend. Yet, mobile ad spending is growing; it is currently triple 2010 spending. The king of mobile advertising is Google, which receives 56 percent of all mobile advertising.

    Disparity among Apps. The amount of revenue from mobile advertising varies greatly among applications. Facebook reported 14 percent of its total ad revenue in the third quarter came from mobile. Almost 60 percent of Pandora’s ad revenue came from mobile in the second quarter. Twitter indicates that some days the majority of its ad revenue has come from mobile.

    Problematic Location Accuracy. One of the issues of mobile advertising is the accuracy of the mobile user’s location. It is problematic to send a hyper local ad if the ad network receives a grossly inaccurate location position, perhaps a geo-code at the center of a zip code. xAd, a local mobile advertising network, has developed a technology that analyzes the multitude of location signals being passed by each publisher and scores them according to accuracy and performance. “The industry cannot take location signals at face value,” said Chi-Chao Chang of xAd. “What we have found through our SmartLocation technology is that location inputs are often inconsistent on a per ad request basis. In fact, some of these signals are just plain wrong.” As a result, ad campaigns may be running on inventory that is not suitable for granular targeting, resulting in wasted ad impressions and overall lackluster performance.

    Automated 3D Mapping. Nokia, fighting to get back to the top of the heap, is acquiring 3D map-technology maker Earthmine and revamping Nokia’s mapping tools to win back customers from its rivals. The company announced a new mapping app for Apple mobile devices and unveiled the new brand name “Here” for its location services and website. Earthmine will provide Nokia with a complete solution for collecting, processing, managing, and hosting 3D street-level imagery. “This will add competitive advantages and increased differentiation to HERE‘s Location Content and Location Platform, sustaining competitiveness in B2B (e.g., data for in-car navigation systems) and drive highly engaging user experiences,” reads a blog on the Nokia website. The company believes that the Earthmine data collection vehicles are massively scalable and expect to be using them in 31 countries next year.

  • Indoor Location Tests Ahead, Mapping under Scrutiny

    Janice Partyka
    Janice Partyka

    October was a month of shows, rumors and announcements. Testing of competing indoor location positioning technologies is being planned by the FCC; prospects for some companies will ride on the public results. Apple may be turning to TomTom to save it from its mapping inaccuracy issues, dubbed Mapplegate. This month’s CTIA show was flat; attendees were wondering if it was the last chapter of the fall show. Interesting industry tidbits were heard at the MforMobile Location Business Summit. New Google Ad Word rates may be created that are also based on the distance between the handset and advertiser’s location. History can be harsh, remembering an unfortunate calculation by a location industry giant. Marketers continue to be frustrated by the mobile industry’s continued difficulty to completely measure ad results.

    The FCC sees indoor location as a critical safety concern for E911 emergency response. The commission has tasked an advisory committee to evaluate indoor location positioning technologies. TechnoCom has been chosen to conduct the independent testing as a neutral third party. The test bed is in about 20 structures of various types, in locations that range from highly dense urban to sparse landscape. The following companies are submitting technology for the testing: Qualcomm (AGPS/AFLT/Cell ID), NextNav (GPS-like terrestrial beacons), Boeing (LEO satellites using the Iridium constellation), and Polaris (RF fingerprinting). Additional companies submitted technology, but later withdrew. Test results should be made public in March of 2013. A public workshop on this testing is being held at the FCC on October 24 and can be watched online at www.fcc.gov/live.

    Indoor Mapping. At the Location Business Summit, it was clear that the retail and hospitality industries is anxious to start exploring indoor marketing based on real-time location. They seem to expect it will start out working flawlessly. It won’t. In addition to the indoor positioning being early stage, mapping quality is uneven. The gold bar of quality assurance for outdoor mapping is aerial fly-overs and street driving. In some situations crowd sourcing works. For indoor maps, it’s the Wild West. Currently there are no standards for vetting indoor mapping. Maps are being created of greatly varying quality, sometimes by way of rough diagrams found on the Internet that are then shoe-horned into the outlines of buildings.

    TomTom to the Rescue?  Shares in TomTom, maker of personal navigation devices (PNDs) and mapping, jumped to a three-week high on speculation that it may be taken private by its founders with the help of Apple. In turn, Apple could buy TomTom’s maps database to correct its mapping problems. TomTom’s founders own 47 percent of the company, but may be held back by the uptick in share value.

    Paying for Location. Reportedly, Google has location-based AdWords in beta. Advertising rates go up the closer the targeted user is to the venue being promoted. A restaurant ad is more relevant, and more likely to draw a person who is one mile away than 20 miles. Some travelers will park near a string of hotels and use a site like hotels.com to find the most competitively priced room for that evening. An ad for a hotel on the other side of town is of lesser value and would be cheaper.

    Comments Heard at the Location Business Summit by MforMobile this Month:

    “We need to build ambient intelligence into devices. Nobody needs more information, more apps, ads, logins or devices. It isn’t sustainable.”

    “Location data on the consumer side is often junky because phones are trying to conserve battery, and won’t invoke GPS.”

    “You can get better locations from the carrier network, but it is too expensive a proposition for advertisers.”

    “We find that hyper-local ad targeting leaves us with too few people to address.”

    Can I Turn Back the Clock? In an interview for Forbes in 2003, Min Kao, CEO of Garmin, puts a stake in the ground. He says he does not seek to compete in navigation with the mobile phone, the likes of Nokia and Motorola, as that is the kind of commodity business Garmin would like to avoid. The PND vendors continue to be squeezed between the OEM embedded equipment and the smartphone. It is hard to be optimistic about the PND market, commented John Canali of Strategy Analytics at the Location Business Summit. Heavy discounting has led to plummeting revenues. “The PND companies are hardware focused in a market whose foundation is software. It will be very difficult to transform PND companies,” says Canali. “They will struggle.” In 2009, Google announced that all Android phones built on OS 1.6 or higher would have free turn-by-turn directions. Nokia followed shortly after. So it began.

    A Little Slow. CTIA drew more than 5,000 people to attend MobileCon, its fall show with a new brand name. You may remember it as CTIA Enterprise and Applications. This was a significant decline from last year when 10,000 to 15,000 conference-goers attended. Activity was slow and the exhibit floor was smaller. Conference sessions were held on the exhibit floor.

    Still Can’t Close the Loop. The industry continues to be unable to provide advertisers with metrics of how many pizzas a mobile ad sold. Papa John’s Pizza will know if someone has clicked to call or clicked to map, but Papa John’s won’t know if those actions resulted in a purchase. Without this fundamental metric, advertisers complain that it is hard to build a business case for mobile advertising. The click rates that they can track aren’t always representative because of user errors that include fat fingers, fraudulent clicks and pocket dialing.

  • iOS, Android Adoption 10 Times that of PCs

    Janice Partyka
    Janice Partyka

    We are making history. The rate of iOS and Android device adoption has surpassed adoption rates for any other consumer technology in recent history, reports analytics firm Flurry. Android and iOS devices are being adopted at a rate 10 times faster than the rate of PC adoption during the 1980s. Smart device adoption is growing twice as fast as Internet adoption during the 1990s, and three times faster than that of recent social network adoption. Flurry estimates there were more than 640 million Android and iOS devices in use as of July 2012. The U.S., followed by China, has the most active iOS and Android devices. However, China had the fastest growth of active devices last year and its active user base will soon overtake the U.S. Other news this month includes security concerns with LBS offerings, developments in the indoor location market, voice navigation for bikes, and unusual election activities.

    With cause, people are concerned about the security of location-based applications. In a poll focused on LBS security, a quarter of 1,000 Americans surveyed indicated both concerns about third-party use of personal information for marketing purposes and strangers knowing too much about personal activities. Surprisingly, about 20 percent indicated a concern for their actual personal safety. The poll was conducted by the non-profit security group, ISACA. Nearly one-third of consumers in ISACA’s survey use location-based apps more than they did a year ago.

    It isn’t just LBS that carries security risks. Smartphones themselves are inherently vulnerable. “Every smartphone subscriber end-point is a potential threat to the mobile network and creates hundreds of millions of points of network vulnerability,” says Jeff Orr of ABI Research. Currently, protection is focused on hardware and end-user application security. To more ably face threats, defensive security measures will grow more sophisticated and encompass contextual information about usage, location, and user. Perversely, this is the same information sought by mobile advertisers. Today, carriers are focused on 4G roll-out and delivering the hottest handset, but they need to be just as concerned about security.

    A Whiff of Hyperbole in the Indoors. The indoors location market is going to be big, but I think that ABI Research’s forecast of indoor maps and services reaching more than $2.5 billion by 2017 is overstated. I agree with their assertion that business models are changing with the most significant indoor mapping companies increasing their scope to include more revenue enhancing activities. These still focus on indoor location, but include application development, location technologies, analytics, and advertising.

    Indoor Location Club. The In-Location Alliance has been formed by 22 companies, including Nokia, Qualcomm, and Samsung, to pursue high-accuracy indoor positioning and related services. One of their goals is to ensure a multi-vendor environment by promoting open interfaces and a standard-based approach. Members are encouraged to execute their own pilots and present their data to the Alliance. The primary solutions will be based on enhanced Bluetooth 4.0 low-energy technology and Wi-Fi standards using relevant existing or upcoming features of those technologies. Pre-commercial pilots and business model verifications will start in 2012, while 2013 is expected to bring mobile handset-based implementation, enabling the first consumer applications in the indoor mobile environment.

    Enterprise GPS Doing Well Approximately 5.5 million GPS/wireless devices are used to manage fleet vehicles, trailers, construction equipment, and mobile workers, estimates C.J. Driscoll & Associates. By 2015, this market will expand to more than nine million units and annual hardware and service revenues will grow to over $3.0 billion, predicts Driscoll. Growth is expected to be strongest in the local GPS fleet tracking market, which is expanding at a rate of 15-20 percent per year.

    Listen to Your Bike. Google has added turn-by-turn voice-guided navigation for bike riders in 10 Nordic and European bike loving countries. Bikers can either listen to the voice or view the route on a phone. In the U.S. and Canada, a beta version will be available. Google maps contain more than 330,000 miles of biking lines. These are color classified as either dedicated bike trails with no motor vehicles, streets with bike lanes, or other streets recommended for biking. Users can use Map Maker to add bike routes.

    Election Coverage. You may have heard that a group called Crossroads GPS spent $5.3 million to run ads to defend Governor Romney’s proposed tax plan. Crossroads GPS is not a new faction of the LBS industry. Crossroads GPS (Grassroots Policy Strategies) is a conservative organization with an unlikely acronym.

    Save the Date. I’ll be moderating a panel debate, “Opening up the Indoors for Location Services,” at MforMobile’s Location Business Summit 2012, being held in San Jose October 16-17. TheWhereBusiness and NFC Insight are now MforMobile.

  • New Offerings in Personalized Location

    With drive navigation nearing maturity, companies are scrambling to develop new offerings. Nokia and others are quickly building indoor mapping arsenals. We are edging closer to the LBS vision that early on defined the market: walk by a Starbucks and get a mobile coupon for a cuppa Joe. Qualcomm’s new Gimbal platform will not only speed the production of more sophisticated personalized apps, but will enable advertising that fits the immediate interests of the end user. Google wants to protect mobile advertising streams and has instituted rules to keep it consumer friendly.

    Qualcomm has released Gimbal, a software developers’ kit that will help developers create personalized content, including sophisticated use of location. The platform will create a rush of apps that will utilize end users’ interests, location, and device sensors to create content that responds to an individual’s real-time situation and preferences. The industry is salivating over the type of marketing/advertising opportunities that platforms like Gimbal create. Contextual ads have been demonstrated to be much more effective than generic ads. There are uses beyond advertising, for instance, a reminder to pick up dry cleaning when in the vicinity, or bread when in a market. The Gimbal library is extensive and includes low-power, geofence-based location awareness, image recognition, privacy management, and other features.

    In a move to further broaden Nokia, the company is focusing on indoor mapping and now claims more than 4,600 venues in 38 countries, a fast ramp-up from its Destination Maps launch at CTIA in 2011. These maps are more detailed than some others in the market and include escalators, floor levels, ATMs, and restrooms. Dynamic content such as movie listings, flight times, or transit schedules can be added for further value to end-users.

    Nooking an LBS. As Apple and Google elbow for mapping dominance, Barnes & Noble has quietly launched maps and navigation for the Nook eReader and opened the door for location-based apps. The company is using the open-sourced OpenStreetMap database via Skobbler to enable developers to create location-based applications for the Nook. OpenStreetMap is a Wikipedia-like open source mapping project that could be the spoiler in the map race between Google and Apple. The Nook utilizes Wi-Fi, but lacks 3G, 4G, or GPS. I’m surprised that Amazon didn’t load the Kindle Fire’s Android version with Google maps.

    Samsung Well Located. Leading handset maker Samsung has acquired the handset connectivity and handset location business of CSR for $310 million plus an added $34 million investment in the remaining CSR business. The details of the deal seem to indicate that Samsung has only purchased the technology license for GPS, not indoor location, said Liam Quirke of IMS Research. “If correct, this means CSR is free to sell its indoor location technology to other handset OEMs, and the reverse means that Samsung is not able to do this,” he adds. This is another move by Samsung to vertically integrate its business to cut costs.

    CSR acquired Sirf Technology, a pioneer of commercial GPS technology, in 2009. Kanwar Chadha, founder of Sirf and a leader at CSR, has resigned. Chadha has been a cheerleader and visionary for the location industry.

    Buy a $60 Massage for $30? Nokia is integrating Groupon daily deals into Windows Lumia device series. Users searching Nokia maps will be shown relevant deals alongside traditional search results. Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows Phone 8 operating system overhaul will install Nokia Maps as the default mapping experience. “Scale is critical to our growth,” says Michael Halbherr of Nokia. “That’s why the horizontal nature of the Windows Phone deal is critical.”

    Ads that Leave a Bad Taste. Google is trying to rein in the most annoying and sometimes deceptive mobile advertising. Android apps available in the Google Play marketplace will need to follow new rules. The company has introduced stringent new mobile advertising restrictions as well as clarified payment, subscription billing, and spam policies. The new rules aim to stop misleading notifications or warnings that impersonate system notifications. The regulations also target apps that make changes to the functioning of the user’s device, outside of the advertisement. Google ads that force a user to click on ads or submit personal information for advertising purposes is strictly prohibited, and Google states that consumers must be able to dismiss an ad without penalty.

    Not First to Know. Did you get the “Mitt’s VP” app so you’d know his choice before the media? “Mitt’s VP” smartphone app for iOS and Android promised to be the first place Romney would publicly announce his selection, but a news leak spilled the beans.  The Romney campaign hoped the app would recover a stronger mobile presence after the release of “With Mitt” in May went awry. “With Mitt” contained an unfortunate typo that promised, “A Better Amercia.” An immigration issue?

    Save the Date. I’ll be moderating a panel debate, “Opening up the Indoors for Location Services,” at MforMobile’s Location Business Summit 2012, being held in San Jose October 16-17. TheWhereBusiness and NFC Insight are now MforMobile.

     

  • A Look at Small Indoor Location Competitors

    Everyone wants a piece of the pie, the upcoming indoor location pie. Big companies and start-ups are engaged, some in research, others having launched solutions. While Wi-Fi is the most common technology, many companies are pursuing alternate methods, including GPS, audio, Bluetooth, small cell/cellular, distributed antenna systems (DAS), near field communication (NFC), white band, sensors, movement tracking, beacons, and more. Of the large players who are making a play for the indoor market, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Qualcomm, RIM, and TCS are the furthest along, reports Grizzly Analytics.

    At a minimum, indoor technology will do what we do outside and enable GPS-style mapping, navigation, local search, check-ins, location-sharing, and other location-based services. An explosion of other uses will evolve, enabling search for items on store shelves, sending deals, and contextual advertising.  This newsletter issue is devoted to looking at smaller companies, those not listed above, many start-ups competing for their piece of the pie.

    A pool of smaller indoor companies is focused on creating positioning technology, many ripe for acquisition. Navizon, sensewhere, and SkyHook are betting on unique approaches to determining indoor location position. No longer solely focused on driving the streets to map Wi-Fi signals, Skyhook has adopted a comprehensive approach to indoor location, integrating multiple technologies (GPS, Wi-Fi, cell, and sensor-based) to ascertain location, a solution that offers the advantage of flexibility. Navizon is focused on Wi-Fi signals, currently the most popular solution for indoor location. There are sometimes existing Wi-Fi nodes, but added nodes can usually be fairly easy to install. From a business standpoint, the downside of Wi-Fi positioning is the large number of competitors focused on solutions. sensewhere is pursuing an entirely crowd-based software offering  that locates and cross-references publically broadcast information, including MAC addresses, from consumer devices. It is the easiest solution. No infrastructure is required, but it requires a certain density of devices.

    I’ve asked Navizon, sensewhere, and Skyhook to write, in their words, about their company, technology and perspective on the industry:

    Navizon – In Their Own Words. “Navizon Indoor Triangulation System (I.T.S.) uses Wi-Fi signals to provide indoor location throughout a building or campus. Navizon designed this system to locate users of smartphones, tablets and laptops, all of whom rely heavily on Wi-Fi.  This real-time locating system’s infrastructure uses small, easily deployable nodes connected through a mesh network.  No wiring or software installation, and only minimal configuration, are required. The administration dashboard is an online interface to Navizon’s cloud.  Integration is through a web services API.  This design delivers an affordable indoor location platform, with room and floor-level accuracy, up and running in a single day.” Cyril Houri, Navizon

    sensewhere – In Their Own Words. “sensewhere technology automatically locates and cross-references RF access points via user devices to create an almost limitless proprietary, reliable, live, global RF location database. The solution does not require additional infrastructure installation nor calibration or re-calibration when the venue’s RF infrastructure changes. sensewhere technology is powered by patented algorithms that dynamically adapt to indoor environments to optimize the use of mobile device resources. Commercial benefits have been demonstrated in the largest shopping malls around the world where more than half of RF infrastructure can change within a few months.” Rob Palfreyman, sensewhere

    SkyHook – In Their Own Words. “Location technology company Skyhook, provides seamless operation of indoor and outdoor mobile device positioning using integrated GPS, Wi-Fi, cell, and sensor-based positioning technologies. Venues have been hesitant to get involved with indoor location due to concerns over control of their data, cost of initial deployment, cost of maintenance, accuracy and consistency of the technology, and availability to deploy on a large variety of devices.  Skyhook is involved in industry efforts to provide venue owners the ability to manage their infrastructure data in a consistent, standardized way that addresses both the technical and business needs.” Ronda Billings, Skyhook

    Positioning technology is of limited use without indoor venue maps, which might include shopping malls, arenas, convention centers, and hospitals. Retail is very interested in being able to direct people into their stores, to a particular aisle, or even shelf location. Meridian, Micello, and Point Inside have distinct approaches. Micello creates indoor maps by using data found in public domain; their customers are not the venues, but the developer community. Meridian creates indoor maps based on maps drawn  by customers and adds navigation and points of interest. At its start, Point Inside had a similar focus, indoor map creation, but has since integrated positioning data and added an ad network to its solution. Point Inside is targeted to retailers.

    I’ve asked Meridian, Micello, and Point Inside to write, in their words, about their companies, technology, and perspective on the industry:

    Meridian – In Their Own Words. “Meridian is focusing on providing software to allow employees of a location-based business to create an indoor way-finding app for visitors. The system enables a customer to upload maps (CAD, etc.) that are then converted into vector files.  Points of interest and turn-by-turn directions can be generated. The turn-by-turn directions can work with any wireless connectivity, from basic 3G to more sophisticated Wi-Fi systems. Indoor venues can achieve a GPS-like experience — that ‘glowing blue dot on the map’ — some are seeking. Meridian is seeing adoption from retailers, hotels and hospitals.” Jeff Hardison, Meridian

    Micello – In Their Own Words. “Micello is a provider of indoor venue maps, including shopping malls, airports, college campus buildings, hospitals, retail stores, casinos, and stadiums in over half-a-dozen countries throughout the world. Micello uses proprietary, in-house mapping and navigation tools combined with map-manufacturing tools and dashboards. The technology ingests various sources of data and information about a given venue to create a well-defined, structured set of indoor map data. In the next 36 months, every building will have an app and mapping technology, integrated with positioning technology. Information will be automatically sorted and organized for users based on where they are located inside.” Ankit Agarwel, Micello

    Point  Inside – In Their Own Words. “Point Inside provides retailers with detailed indoor maps, exact product location, and dynamic shoppers locations to help stores engage with in-store customers. The user’s shopping list, which is entered into the application, enables high-converting, hyper-targeted advertising.  With indoor location technologies advancing too quickly to pick a single winner, Point Inside uses proprietary algorithms to combine results from multiple location technologies to determine the most accurate fix. Primary technologies include: proprietary Wi-Fi fingerprinting, motion sensing to determine movement from known locations (such as product locations); partnership with other location providers; and correlation with indoor maps to determine valid locations.” Todd Sherman, Point Inside

    How does this shake out? It is too early to tell. In the coming year, I expect the indoor location market will be better formed. Consolidation will occur. Some companies will drop out and others will be purchased. Grizzly Analytics suggests eBay, Local.com, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, GroupOn, TI, Qualcomm, CSR, Google, foursquare, and Google are all shopping or looking for strategic alliances to develop indoor location offerings. Time will tell who eats pie.

  • Mapping Upheavals, Indoor Location Headway, FCC on LBS Privacy

    Big changes. Apple finally ended its long time dependence on Google Maps. As part of its latest operating system upgrade to iOS 6, Apple is launching its own, home-grown mapping service. It is an impressive offering. In a very different move, Microsoft is replacing its own Bing maps in all Windows Phone devices. Nokia maps, previously Navteq, will replace Microsoft’s home-grown Bing Maps. Micello has a new indoor location trial that isn’t just indoor mapping. This month the FCC has something to say on the topic of privacy in LBS apps. ABI Research has high expectations for indoor location.

    Google maps will be demoted to just another app on iPhones and iPads, a blow to Google’s bottom line. iOS device owners account for 28 percent of Google Map users in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, and Spain, reports Analysis Mason. This parting will create additional friction in the contentious relationship between Google and Apple. Many partners are helping Apple produce the offering, but TomTom is the only one acknowledged in the announcement. Apple reports TomTom is “powering Apple maps.” No explanation has been given.

    The new Apple in-house maps built for iOS 6 include 100 million business listings and Yelp recommendations, integrated with real-time, crowd-sourced traffic, navigation, and suggested travel routes. It all works with Siri, Apple’s voice-activated search software. Siri has its critics, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak who has been quoted with derisive, even crude, comments on Siri’s usability.

    Will Location Move Stock Price? Facebook says it’s working on a location-based mobile-advertising product that will allow advertisers to target users based on their real-time whereabouts. Facebook’s shares have dropped by almost 20 percent since the company’s initial public offering, fueled partly by concern that ad-revenue growth isn’t keeping up with a shift by users to mobile phones.

    LBS Is Being Monitored. Ever concerned with privacy, the FCC released a report on location-based services. The agency declined to adopt privacy regulations or best practices, but indicated it would monitor the industry for the following: ensuring privacy considerations are integral to product development, security of data from unauthorized access, timing and frequency of location privacy notices to consumers, and minimization of data collected and time period for which it is retained. The FCC warns it will take additional steps if not satisfied with privacy implementation for LBS.

    Indoor Fortunes. Indoor location is positioned to save retail brick and mortar, says ABI Research. I wouldn’t go that far, but it will certainly have a positive impact. Major U.S. retail brands will launch indoor location technologies in 2012 and 2013, says ABI. “Revenue will come from multiple sources, including advertising, infrastructure deployment/service fees, and application management,” says Patrick Connolly. The technology will enable advances in customer analytics, proximity advertising, store optimization, couponing, and CRM. Retailers will likely want to control store data, which will be an important consideration in picking partners.

    I Am Here. Micello, indoor mapping creator, has a trial for its new FindMe location application. Users can share their whereabouts in Singapore with anyone in their address book. The app allows users to send a text that includes a detailed map that shows the user’s indoor location. The company is expanding the app to Las Vegas and some college campuses.

    Grapevine. Rumors persist that Amazon is in talks to acquire Jumptap, one of the mobile advertising network leaders. Amazon plans to enlarge its Special Offers advertising platform to the Kindle Fire Tablet, a competitor to Apple’s pricier iPad, reports Ad Age. A Jumptap purchase would make sense. Amazon has a treasure trove of purchase information on individual users on hand that can be used to develop personalized and contextual mobile advertising.

    Timing Is Everything. In Apple’s forthcoming operating system update, all applications will require explicit user permission before accessing personal information, such as location information. Apple made the announcement just after developer Arun Thampi reported iOS social application Path was uploading users’ address books to its servers. A backlash from consumers and legislators followed. Path later acknowledged storing user data and updated its app to enable users to opt out of its contacts database.

    Sad News. Sorry to hear Nokia plans to cut 10,000 jobs by the end of 2013. Remember when Navteq had the mapping world in the palm of its hand? What a fall. Last year Nokia cut 14,000 jobs.

  • New Offerings and Retarded Growth

    NEW ORLEANS — CTIA was both about new offerings and the issues retarding industry growth. The hyper local mobile advertising contingency proclaimed 2012 as the year of its breakthrough. Indoor location companies hoped that 2012 would be their year. Although the car manufacturers didn’t exhibit, mobile apps for the connected vehicle were prominent. Mobile wallet and safety apps were hot. The connected home raised its hopeful head once again. Winning back consumers’ trust that their privacy would be safeguarded, including location information, was acknowledged as standing in the way of deeper, more personalized offerings. Carriers sounded alarms about running out of spectrum to support ballooning mobile data consumption.

    Industry leaders provided their perspectives on where our industry is headed:

    “The reputation of our industry has dropped to the lowest of any major industry. Even the cable and oil industries rate higher with consumers than we do. That’s a bummer.” Dan Hesse, Sprint Nextel

    “We are waiting for the Steve Jobs of automotive. We need a platform that lets apps run with zero friction. Jobs listened to consumers; we need that for connectivity to the vehicle.” Alon Atsmon, iOnRoad Technologies

    “In two years we will see more vehicle connectivity, indoor location, and mobile based advertising. We are not pursuing indoor location now, but it is on our radar. In the future we will see incremental map updates. Map updates are now done on a country or state basis. We can’t yet pull out a tile of the map and just update it.” Darianna Gessner, TomTom

    “There will be advances in location accuracy, reliability, ubiquity and indoor position. We will see a more connected infotainment system in the vehicle­. It will connect to the vehicle and make phone calls, provide safety and security, understand proximity, and give lane guidance.” Brian MacLeod, Trimble

    “Companies need to be concerned about monetization, distribution, and functionality. Some companies are putting money into developing apps when it doesn’t make sense, and they don’t need to be in an app store. The Financial Times pulled their app out of the app store, because they no longer wanted to share the revenue.” Todd Simpson, Mozilla

    How would you like to pay for that? The credit card companies, carriers, and Google are vigorously vying for best market position in the mobile payment industry. Has Ralph de la Vega of AT&T found a new reality plane? During a keynote, he predicted that mobile payments would replace the wallet by next year. With public concerns about privacy and security, a shift needs to occur in the U.S. before it will be widely adopted. Strong, simple, and convincing privacy controls that win consumers’ trust will the first step.

    Location Protects Location Labs is the provider of the Sprint “Safely Bundle,” which offers families a way to monitor or restrict their phone-carrying children through location checks and limits on texting, such as while driving or at school. “We are working on developing a way to offer geo-fencing,” says Tasso Roumeliotis of Location Labs. “The challenge is that continuous location checks drain a phone battery greatly.” The goal is always-on location. Geo-fencing has long been used for asset tracking in devices that draw power from the car battery.

    Eye on the Road. iOnRoad showed off its clever driver assistance app and came away with the show’s Mobile Application Automotive Driving and Transportation prize. A cell phone, placed in a dashboard mount, provides a forward collision warning by monitoring the distance to the vehicle ahead. It also provides a lane departure warning if the vehicle is traveling over 37 mph and the wheel touches a solid line (not dotted line). The product is being sold for $4.99, a one-time license fee.

    CTIA Reveals. TechnoCom has launched a new division dedicated to the LocationSmart platform, a location integration solution. “This cloud-based location and messaging service adds device location awareness to enterprise and consumer applications,” says Mario Proietti of TechnoCom. “It is a cross-carrier platform for location and messaging.” Asked for his perceptions of CTIA, Proietti summed it up as the year of the credit-card companies (mobile payment), mobile solutions for in-car experience, and swarms of booth babes. I would like to see new product reveals, not skin.”

    Lost? How far can Hertz NeverLost go without expanding its market beyond their rental cars?  Hertz was at CTIA showing off expanded city guides that will provide enhancements to their users. When asked if they had plans to enlarge their market beyond customers of their rental fleets, Linda Senigaglia of Hertz seemed surprised by the question, and asserted that their play is solely with Hertz customers. Ouch.

    Sprint Mobile Ad Policy. Sprint Nextel plans to introduce a new mobile advertising privacy policy that it will distribute to all new subscribers, allowing them to opt-out of services. Sprint reported that an independent third party would audit Sprint’s compliance. “We must ensure customers are fully informed of our data collection practices,” explained Dan Hesse of Sprint. “As an industry, we’ve got to work together to get this right.” Hesse has previously called for stricter guidelines on driving while using cell phones and for the use of renewable and reusable materials.

    Spectrum Shortage. Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile executives complained that the future of data use is at risk if more spectrum isn’t put to use. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski defended the agency’s decision to block the AT&T T-Mobile deal with a rejoinder about spectrum shortage. “Some have argued that transactions — let’s be frank, one transaction — is somehow causing a shortage,” said Genachowski. “But the overall amount of spectrum hasn’t changed.” While this is true, spectrum is a concern. CTIA reports that U.S mobile data traffic surged 123 percent in 2011.

    Rumors. The grapevine is buzzing with rumors that Deutsche Telekom is in talks with MetroPCS about combining with T-Mobile. Sanford Bernstein’s Craig Moffett had a field day with the possibility, “Oh, my, what an ugly baby,” he writes. Bloomberg reports that MetroPCS is in discussion with other partners as well.

    At the movies. Have you seen the fabulous new Norwegian thriller Headhunters? Spoiler alert: the main character is tracked via nano-sized location devices smeared somewhere on his body.   See the movie to find out where.

  • Stonewalling, Mapping, Google, and Fines

    After a long investigation, the FCC hit Google with a resoundingly soft penalty for stonewalling the FCC inquiry into its controversial street-mapping program. Google was picking up a payload of sensitive information from home wireless networks from 2007 through 2010. This included emails, passwords, and Internet usage history. The FCC declared that the data collection was technically legal because the information gathered was unencrypted. However, the FCC stated that, “for many months Google deliberately impeded and delayed the bureau’s investigation” and fined Google a paltry $25,000 for their behavior. After initially denying any wrongdoing, Google admitted in a blog entry in 2010 that it had made a mistake by collecting the data.

    Google and foursquare shared a panel at the GPS-Wireless conference, an interesting pairing given foursquare’s recent announcement that it is betting on the future of open source map data. New API pricing of Google Maps has a number of solution providers shopping for mapping alternatives. Google says that only the top .35 percent of Google map users is affected by the pricing (under 25,000 map views a day are still free). foursquare was among them, and re-launched its web maps using MapBox based on OpenStreetMap data. “These maps are adequate,” said Holger Luedorf of foursquare. “This helps the open street community and it felt like it was right thing to do. Google is very good and we will continue to use their products elsewhere.”

    Interesting tidbits. Heard at the “O’Reilly Where” and “GPS-Wireless” conferences this month:

    “People will pay for apps for family and safety. There is real monetization in this realm. When was the last time that people put an alarm on their house and paid for it with ads?”

    “I see nothing to augmented reality. I don’t think it will go anywhere. It feels like I’m looking through a toy camera viewer.”

    “Any location technology that has tried to compete against GPS has failed. They are useful but can’t compete head on against GPS. They now have a second life as a technology that supplements core location, which is GPS.”

    “Consumers are willing to share location if you can give them something in exchange of value. Not every company does that.”

    What’s happening to the vehicle aftermarket? It used to be that the vehicle aftermarket would lead innovation and benefited from a significant time-to-market advantage. The traditional aftermarket is currently struggling to find its special niche. The world has changed and the aftermarket is having a tough time rivaling connected vehicles. In the past, the aftermarket also offered consumers more value, but OEMS have gotten lighter on their feet. The aftermarket is now the consumer market, such as smartphones.

    Who will capture the indoor location frontier? Companies are lining up to get a shot at the indoor location market. Companies like Meridian, Google, aisle411, Point Inside, and Micello, and many others, have found their own niches. Meridian has staked out a niche for indoor navigation and mapping that is managed by the customer. “We aim to be the WordPress of indoor location,” says Jeff Hardison of Meridian. Meridian uses Wi-Fi when available and provides interactive mapping and navigation for various types of indoor venues including the American Museum of Natural History. For retail, the system can be tied into inventory systems to pinpoint items on shelves. One store has added advertisements for books on the indoor navigation system and reports 33 percent of users are clicking on the ads.

    Search rules location-based mobile ads. Locally targeted ads that accompany mobile search results are much more potent than locally targeted display ads. xAd, a mobile local ad network, reports significantly greater click-through rates for targeted local search (7 percent) compared to targeted local display ads ( 0.6 percent). Clicks alone don’t fully satisfy advertisers who want to see measured outcome. xAd self-reports secondary action rates of targeted local search ads of 37 percent and targeted local display ads of only five percent. Secondary actions include calls and requests for driving directions.

    It’s a race. Local and nationally targeted mobile advertising is currently neck and neck. This year, mobile local ad revenues have caught up with nationally targeted mobile ads, for a combined $2.7 billion in revenue, says BIA/Kelsey Group. This is an increase from last year, in which local ads were estimated to be 45 percent of total mobile ad revenues. According to projections by BIA/Kelsey Group, local mobile ads will exceed national ads in 2016 and total $5 billion of the estimated $7.7 billion in mobile ad revenues.

    Not everyone is convinced. “The financials for mobile advertising aren’t there for us. We won’t do it until our customers are asking for it,” says Bryan Trussel of Glympse at the GPS-Wireless show. “We tried it and got advertisements for toe fungus and Playtex on our screen. It wasn’t worth it. We don’t want generic banner ads. We’ll wait.”

  • Automakers Move Ahead on Mobile Connectivity

    It wasn’t quite a call to arms, but Bill Ford, head of Ford Motor, called on the wireless community to work with car makers to avoid global gridlock and create a future of “urban mobility,” a network that will track vehicles and automatically instruct cars to change lanes, exit a road, or park. Vehicle connectivity was one of the major themes of the Mobile World Congress, held in February in Barcelona. For some of us, it brought up memories of the PATH automated highways project of the 1990s. You have likely seen photos of that prototype automated highway with platoons of driver-less vehicles riding on I-15 in southern California. The vision has changed, and we are headed towards autonomous, connected vehicles and away from the specialized, and prohibitively expensive, infrastructure that defined earlier efforts.

    By 2020, 90 percent of cars will have mobile connectivity, compared to 10 percent today, predicts Machina Research in a study funded by the GSMA. The industry is aflutter with connected activity. Sprint Nextel is partnering with Chrysler Group’s Uconnect voice-activated vehicle communications system that enables Sprint phones to connect to the vehicle’s audio system. The Ford Sync will be available to European customers. The Family Locator from TCS will be incorporated in connected vehicles.

    Smartphones Overtake Feature Phones. For the first time, close to half of Americans own smartphones, edging out feature phone ownership, reports the Pew Internet and American life project. According to its report, 45 percent of adults identify themselves as smartphone owners, compared to 41 percent who identify as feature phone owners. There was a notable increase in smartphone ownership by almost every demographic group, including men and women, younger and middle-age adults, urban and rural residential and wealthy and lower-income people.

    Apple Grown Maps. For a year, there have been signs that Google was developing its own mapping and navigation service. Apple has acquired digital mapping companies and listed licenses from many third-party location service companies. 9to5Mac reports that Apple’s mapping contract with Google expires at the end of 2012, and hasn’t yet been renewed. The just-released iPhoto application uses Apple-grown mapping, and not Google.

    Disappearing Ovi. Nokia is closing down the Ovi Share media sharing site to focus on offerings by its location and commerce division, dedicated to building consumer-centric social location products and applications, as well as platform services and local commerce solutions. Services include Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps, and Nokia Transport.

    Gambling Geo-Fence. In the U.S., online and mobile gambling is only legal within the state of Nevada. The location of the mobile user must be determined to ensure she is within state boundaries. Locaid Technologies is the first company to meet all the requirements of the Nevada Gaming Control Board to certify the location of a mobile gambler. Locaid uses geofencing to build virtual, digital perimeters around the state of Nevada and reports it can “prove that a user is physically with a mobile device, and whether the person is located within Nevada state borders, across any major carrier mobile network — whether the mobile device is indoors or outdoors, GPS-enabled or not, and whether the device is a smartphone, feature phone, or laptop computer.”

    February Black Friday. Shopkick announced results of an experiment to create a one-day boost in foot traffic at partner retail stores using holiday tactics during a non-peak shopping period. “We asked a simple question: What if retailers could create Black Friday shopping behavior any day of the year that they wanted?” said Cyriac Roeding of shopkick. The company reports that by doubling the incentives they deliver via smartphone, none worth more than a dollar, their retail partners experience double-digit increases. Retail partners include American Eagle, Macy’s, Old Navy, and Best Buy.

    Effectiveness of Mobile Shopping Apps? Smartphones are increasingly used for shopping, researching products, comparing prices, and finding retail locations. Nielsen metered the smartphones of 5,000 U.S. volunteers during the 2011 holiday shopping season. Nielsen’s analysis reveals that retail websites are more popular than retail apps. Both genders prefer retailers’ mobile websites over mobile apps. The top retail apps and websites combined were Amazon, Best Buy, eBay, Target, and Walmart, and reached nearly 60 percent of smartphone owners during the end of 2011.

    What Was Ford Thinking? In his Mobile World Congress address, Bill Ford, great grandson of Henry, warned that unless the wireless and automotive industries find a solution, global gridlock could one day become a “human rights issue.” In addition to working to end torture, does Mr. Ford think that Amnesty International should pursue the issue of vehicle traffic mitigation?

  • Privacy and the Devil Pact

    In the public dialogue about mobile privacy concerns, I’ve yet to hear a plea to turn back the clock to when mobile apps were supported by subscription fees. Surprisingly, many consumers don’t understand the devil pact that free services come with a loss of privacy. With the exception of enterprise offerings, subscription fees have shrunk or disappeared for most location-based services. At the Institute for Communication Technology Management at the University of Southern California, Allison Cera of Lucent-Alcatel talked about the intersection of technology and identity. More than half of the people in her study felt they shouldn’t have to provide information about themselves just to get the most out of online services. Among the most connected technology users, the expectation of privacy was lower.

    As companies rework privacy agreements, it’s interesting that Cera’s research indicates people prefer a simpler privacy policy that is easier to understand, over one that provides more comprehensive protection. In addition to simplicity, people prefer uniformity. Almost 90 percent want to see Internet and mobile service providers, social networking sites, and search engines all governed by the same laws and regulations regarding the collecting, analyzing, and sharing of online data.

    Google knows all? Google has experienced heat from lawmakers and consumers over its efforts to consolidate user privacy standards and share data among its offerings. Google announced plans to connect user data across desktop and mobile services including Google+, Gmail and YouTube. “Our new privacy policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services,” blogged Alma Whitten of Google. “In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”

    You know where I’ve been. Would consumers exchange transparency into whereabouts and driving behavior for a cheaper insurance premium?  TomTom is providing the technology behind a new insurance product, which bases premiums on driving behavior. TomTom has teamed up with insurance broker Motaquote for the launch of Fair Pay Insurance, a product that rewards “good” drivers with lower premiums. Drivers who sign up for Fair Pay receive a TomTom navigation device. They will also have a LINK tracking unit fitted in their vehicles, allowing driver behavior and habits to be monitored by the insurer. This information can also be viewed by the policy-holder in their driver dashboard.

    A kick without GPS. Mobile location-based advertising, dependent on geo-locating shoppers, hasn’t ramped up as fast as the industry diviners predicted, but shopkick, a location-based shopping app has gotten traction. The company asserts that it helped drive $110 million of in-store revenue to its retail partners in 2011.  shopkick rewards shoppers for walking into stores and interacting with products.  The solution is not GPS based, as indoor signals remain problematic. Instead, the shopkick phone app detects its presence in a particular store by “hearing” a signal that is emitted from a store-based device. The store is able to send the shopper a reward that can be redeemed for loot.

    Pressure mounts for LightSquared. Sprint has given LightSquared until mid-March to obtain FCC clearance for its LTE network.  Recent government tests showed that LightSquared interfered with GPS, even under a new deployment plan that the company promoted as a fix to the issue.  Lightsquared’s assertion that GPS receivers are “not entitled to any interference protection whatsoever” is open for public comment at the FCC until March 13. Harbinger Capital, the hedge fund that backs LightSquared, reported a 47% decline in its biggest fund.

    Love on the Road. Valentine’s Day was yesterday, and love is in bloom. TomTom undertook a mission to find love on the asphalt by seeking roads in the U.S. that are considered romantically named.  Texas was a stand out with 102 miles of romantically named roads.  Who would’ve thought that the lone star state was such a softie? The most common romantic road names are Rose Road, Lover’s Lane, Valentine Road, Darling Road and Love Street.  TomTom counted roads throughout the U.S. containing the words: Couples, Cupid, Darling, Forget-Me-Not, Kiss, Love, Lover, Romance, Rose, Smooch, Sweetheart, Valentine. Smooch Street?