A: Very worried. Just about any connected device can be hacked, including iPhones or Android phones, regardless of fingerprint recognition technology or complex passwords. Hackers can listen to conversations or access the location positioning via flaws in a portion of mobile networks called Signaling System 7. Hackers using common software-defined radio tools have discovered a cheap way to make a GPS emulator to falsify the GPS location of smartphones and in-car navigation systems.
Headshot: Paul McBurney
Paul McBurney, Founder, CEO, Gopherhush Corp.
A: Mobile phone users will share location-based information of business travel mileage, driving
behavior for usage-based car insurance, toll-road usage, or even time cards. The best way for the receiving party to protect against location hacking or even errant fix data is to require cross-checking of the location data with multiple location sources based on GNSS, OS network location, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth reference points, and even the phones sensors. It’s RAIM against hacking.
Headshot: Todd Humphreys
Todd Humphreys, Professor, Director, Radionavigation Lab, University of Texas
A: We usually don’t mind some people knowing our position some of the time, but it’s uncomfortable to think that a hacker or a government could accurately track our position whenever they want. Your credit card number is a lot more valuable to the average hacker than your location, so the danger of location theft is low, unless you’re the special target of someone’s profiling or blackmail scheme. As for a hacker corrupting a location, this is a serious problem that needs addressing if connected cars are ever to trust one another’s data.
Prince’s death on April 21 highlights a fatal flaw in the United States’ antiquated 911 emergency system. When you call from cell phone, 911 doesn’t automatically know where you are. 911 often can’t determine the location of an emergency, even when the call for help comes from a GPS-equipped smartphone. Often the 911 operator can only zero in the nearest cell tower, which can be several miles away or in the next county.
In the transcript of the 911 call from Prince’s house comes this exchange:
911 operator: OK, what’s the address?
Caller: We’re at Prince’s house.
911 operator: OK, does anybody know the address? OK, your cell phone’s not going to tell me where you’re at, so I need you to find me an address … OK, have you found an address yet?
Caller: Yeah, um, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. (The caller is heard asking others if they know the address.)
911 operator: Is there any mail around that you could look at?
While a quicker response may not have saved Prince’s life, some experts estimate that cutting 911 response by one minute could save one person every hour every day nationwide.
The FCC and the four largest cellphone carriers say they’re doing their best to address the problem. One possible solution is LaaSer, a technology suite that runs in the cloud. LaaSer updates your precise location at the exact same time that the call to 911 is being made, so that the answering operator is immediately presented with your information.
With Laaser, any mobile device delivers accurate location information about the caller to 911 operators immediately. It does this using existing infrastructure, so carriers, handset manufacturers and 911 call centers wouldn’t have to change their systems to receive the benefits.
Unlike current 911 mobile phone technology, LaaSer takes advantage of all of the location information already available in smartphones, including GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, near-field communications (NFC)/RFID, compass, accelerometer, barometer and more.
Google has announced that raw GNSS measurements will be available to apps in the Android N operating system, which will be released later this year. This means pseudoranges, dopplers and carrier phase will be obtainable from a phone or tablet computer.
The announcement came during Google’s I/O 2016, its three-day developer conference which was held May 18-20. The specific announcement occurs during a video summary of the conference, shown below.
“This is groundbreaking,” says Steve Malkos, a technical program manager at Google. “It is the first time in history that a mobile application will have access to the raw GPS measurements. This is beneficial to many, but especially the phone makers, because they can use these measurements to help them in their performance testing. And if you ever had a bright idea on how to use GPS measurements, now’s your time to shine.”
Malkos co-wrote “The Fashion Demands of Always-On: Ultra-Low-Power, High-Accuracy Location for Wearable GNSS Devices: From Host-Based to On-Chip” in the December 2014 issue of GPS World, and “Putting the (ultra-low) Power in GeoFence” in the November 2013 issue. His blog post in the upcoming July 2016 issue will include more information about the new Google development, including a hands-on demonstration course to be offered at ION-GNSS+ 2016 in Portland, Oregon in September.
Android N is the codename of an upcoming release of the Android operating system. It was first released as a developer preview on March 9, with factory images for current Nexus devices, as well as with the new Android Beta Program which allows supported devices to be upgraded directly to the Android N beta via over-the-air update. The stable release of the operating system is expected in mid-2016.
Google I/O is an annual developer-focused conference held by Google in the San Francisco Bay Area. It features technical, in-depth sessions focused on building web, mobile, and enterprise applications with Google and open web technologies such as Android, Chrome, Chrome OS, APIs, Google Web Toolkit, App Engine, and more. Google I/O began in 2008. The “I” and “O” stand for input/output, as well as the slogan “Innovation in the Open.”
Spectracom’s VelaSync time server and grandmaster clock.
Spectracom’s VelaSync high-speed time server offers high-performance synchronization for time-sensitive networks. It is designed for high frequency trading and other low-latency network applications.
Matching network speeds between timing and data on a single low-latency high-throughput network enhances synchronization accuracy and eliminates queuing delays and hidden time errors caused by slower connections. The availability of a network timing appliance with 40 GbE interfaces benefits deployment of critical network infrastructure at high-speed data rates.
When the VelaSync time server platform was introduced in 2014, it met the needs of financial trading networks’ move to 10 gigabit-per-second networking. Spectracom’s precision GPS timing technology, software from its partner FSMLabs and modular server hardware enable it to meet the needs of high-frequency trading and other low-latency network applications.
VelaSync Features
PTP + NTP on all ports
Low hundreds of nanoseconds accuracy
1G/10G/25G/40G Ethernet solves network queueing problems (silent time errors)
High-quality GPS-disciplined clock source
Rubidium atomic clock option
Single-pane-of-glass enterprise sync management
Time Intelligence Platform gathers statistics from clients, detects problems
STMicroelectronics and Israel-based Autotalks have announced their fusion of GNSS technology and V2X ranging.
The new V2X-Enhanced GNSS ensures authenticated and secure vehicle localization for extreme accuracy and reliability of positioning information, especially in urban canyons, tunnels and parking structures, where accurate absolute and relative positioning-to other vehicles and infrastructure-is critical in progress toward semi- and fully-autonomous vehicles.
STMicroelectronics is a semiconductor company, and Israel-based Autotalks is a V2X-chipset market company involved in the first wave of V2X deployments.
Development of V2X-Enhanced GNSS builds on the companies’ successes in co-developing a V2X chipset that connects vehicles to other vehicles and infrastructure within wireless range for safety and mobility applications, the companies said in a press release.
The promise of efficient, coordinated, and safe driving of autonomous cars can result only from the accurate positioning that the fusion of GNSS with V2X technology achieves, the companies said.
“Autotalks fully recognizes that autonomous driving requires equal measures of reliability, accuracy, and security and no driver would sacrifice any of these,” said Hagai Zyss, CEO of Autotalks.
“Our solutions have been architected from the beginning to enable automated driving and because we recognize positioning for autonomous vehicles as critical, Autotalks, with ST, continues to optimize accurate V2X positioning-and we believe that our customers understand the value and potential.”
V2X-Enhanced GNSS technology, when coupled with V2X-enabled infrastructure, can uniquely provide absolute positioning to vehicles to assure lane-level accuracy. This precision improves navigation in urban canyons and tunnels and is also being used to develop myriad new applications, such as autonomous on-street and in-garage parking and available-spot identification.
“To fully realize the safety, convenience and other benefits of autonomous driving, we need confidence in the security, reliability and accuracy of the communications between our vehicle and its surroundings to know precisely how close we are to things, whether — and in what direction — they are moving, and what they are telling us — such as when there are roadworks or an accident ahead,” said Antonio Radaelli, director of Infotainment, Automotive Digital Division, STMicroelectronics.
“Building upon our successful collaboration with Autotalks, we are combining ST’s state-of-the-art positioning technology and roadmap for high-precision Automotive GNSS supporting satellite signal authentication with Autotalks’ expertise in advanced signal-processing algorithms for ranging, to smoothly pave the road to secure, accurate, and reliable V2X-Enhanced GNSS.”
Field trials in an Asian country, monitored by a government agency, are being used to test this technology in 2016.
ABI Research, the leader in transformative technology innovation market intelligence, forecasts the global wireless connectivity market, excluding cellular connectivity, to reach more than 10 billion annual integrated circuit (IC) shipments by 2021.
While smartphones will continue to represent the largest market, the introduction of Bluetooth mesh networking, emerging Wi-Fi protocols, enhancements to 802.15.4, such as ZigBee 3.0 and Thread, and the growing trend to develop multiprotocol connectivity system on chips (SoCs), will create new opportunities in various verticals of the IoT market.
Bluetooth will be in 60% of total devices by 2021. The mobile phone market will account for less than 45% total Bluetooth shipments by this time as Bluetooth Smart continues to grow and branch into new verticals. Bluetooth Smart will be in 16% of devices by this time, with strong growth in smart home and beacon applications, in addition to a significant presence in the connected home and wearable space.
Wi-Fi will see its most significant growth in IoT verticals, such as wearables, automotive, the smart home, and other nascent IoT verticals. However, by 2021, mobile phones will still account for 55% of the Wi-Fi-enabled device market. Wi-Fi is also branching out into new frequency bands, including 802.11ad (WiGig) for high-speed wireless data transfer and sub-1GHz Wi-Fi HaLow (802.11ah). This will open up new opportunities for 802.11ad in the networking, mobile device, computing, and peripheral space, and in low power IoT devices and wireless sensor network applications for 802.11ah. By 2021, Wi-Fi will be found in 47% of all devices. Forecasts for each Wi-Fi protocol are provided in the market data.
802.15.4-based technologies, such as ZigBee and Thread, are set to find success in the smart home, achieving a CAGR of 60% between 2016 and 2021. The technology will also see growth in energy management and smart city applications, such as building automation, smart metering, smart lighting, and industrial applications, accounting for more than 28% of devices by this time. However, 802.15.4 will still only be present in less than 9% of the device market by 2021, predominantly due to its absence in the smartphone and consumer electronic markets.
NFC is also targeting new opportunities for mobile payments in smartphones and wearables, as well as secure pairing and provisioning of IoT devices. It is the growing prevalence of combo ICs, though, that will help drive the market forward, particularly in IoT verticals.
“These solutions can help eliminate the need for multiple connectivity ICs, reduce complexity and cost, and give manufacturers greater flexibility in targeting multiple applications and use cases using a single SoC,” says Andrew Zignani, Industry Analyst at ABI Research. “Devices incorporating multiprotocol chipsets will be more future-proof and faster to market. Ultimately, this will enable greater scalability and afford OEMs more flexibility and confidence when designing a connected device.”
ABI Research’s extensive analysis of the wireless connectivity market includes forecasts for technologies ranging from Bluetooth “Classic”, Smart, and Smart Ready to 802.15.4, NFC, and each of the current and future Wi-Fi protocols. Market opportunities for each of these technologies are assessed across more than 15 verticals and 75 end device types.
These findings are part of ABI Research’s Wireless Connectivity Service, which includes research reports, market data, insights, and competitive assessments.
Telit Communications PLC, a global enabler of the internet of things (IoT), has agreed to acquire several cellular module product lines, related intellectual property (IP) and related assets from Novatel Wireless, Inc., for an initial cash purchase price of $11 million and conditional earn-out consideration, which Telit expects to be non-material.
Novatel Wireless is not associated with GNSS receiver maker NovAtel.
The Telit portfolio includes integrated products and services for end-to-end IoT deployments — including GNSS, cellular communication modules, short-to-long range wireless modules, IoT connectivity plans and IoT platform services.
As part of the acquisition, Telit acquired specific IP and was granted an exclusive license to other Novatel IP related to the acquired cellular module lines, including subsequent versions in development.
The acquisition is not expected to have a material impact on the Group’s financial performance.
“The acquisition of these products and associated IP strengthens Telit’s position in the security market segment, a segment that is expected to be an early adopter of LTE Cat1. The acquisition is part of our strategy to enhance our product offering by both acquisition and our own R&D,” said Oozi Cats, Telit’s chief executive.
Keynotes at February’s Inertial Sensors conference summarize initiatives to provide continuous, high-frequency and high-accuracy position spanning GPS outages or obstructions.
GPS-Free. Robert Lutwak, program manager at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), spoke on “Precise Robust Inertial Guidance for Munitions: Navigating in a GPS-free World.”
Over the past decade, the DARPA Micro-Technology for Position, Navigation, and Timing (micro-PNT) program developed low-CSWaP inertial sensors as a backup or “flywheel” PNT solution for GNSS augmentation, validation and holdover in obfuscated environments. New programs, such as the Precise Robust Inertial Guidance for Munitions (PRIGM) program, seek to ruggedize and deploy devices developed under micro-PNT and to extend the performance to support longer and more dynamic mission scenarios. In addition to maturing micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and atomic technologies developed under micro-PNT, PRIGM is exploring new sensing modalities and architectures, including those enabled by integrated photonics and by the tight integration of photonic and MEMS technologies.
Accuracy One-Thousandfold. Lutwak also gave an overview of DARPA’s new Atomic Clocks with Enhanced Stability (ACES) program. A technology challenge budgeted for up to $50 million, ACES’ goal is to design and build a new generation of palm-sized, battery-powered atomic clocks that perform up to 1,000 times better than the current generation — DARPA’s Chip-Scale Atomic Clock.
The new clocks must fit into a package about the size of a billfold and run on a mere quarter-watt of power. Success will require advances that counter accuracy-eroding processes in current atomic clocks, among them variations in atomic frequencies that result from temperature fluctuations and subtle frequency differences that can occur if the power shuts down and then starts up again.
“It will take a collaboration of teams with skill sets from diverse fields, including atomic physics, optics, photonics, microfabrication and vacuum technology, to achieve the unprecedented clock stability that we seek,” Lutwak said.
MEMS Transition. Stephen Breit, director of engineering for Coventor, gave his predictions for the “Future of the Commodity MEMS Inertial Sensor Design and Manufacturing.”
Emerging trends that could lead to disruptive changes include commoditization of MEMS process technology, consolidation of advanced semiconductor technology, More-than-Moore integration, and the Internet of Things (IoT). These trends motivate industry efforts toward a transition similar to the one that occurred in the CMOS industry: from integrated device manufacturers to a fabless/foundry business model.
This will require a design automation flow that provides a platform for process design kits (PDKs) that foundries can supply to their fabless customers.
Exploiting fingerprints, other smartphone features
Tiny irregularities in an Android or iPhone’s accelerometer can be turned into a unique signature to track users, Stanford researchers found in 2013. These flaws essentially fingerprint an individual smartphone and allow it to be traced. Highly focused activity since then, some of it summarized here, has advanced the frontiers of non-GPS tracking. Developments could prove interesting to privacy advocates, online marketers and law enforcement.
Security researcher Hristo Bojinov demonstrated how, in a matter of seconds, he induced his smartphone to give up its “fingerprints.” Code running on a website in the device’s mobile browser measured the tiniest defects in the device’s accelerometer, producing a unique set of numbers — exploitable to identify and track most smartphones. Marketers could use the ID the same way they use cookies to identify a particular user, monitor their online actions and target ads.
The research team was also able to identify phones using their microphones and speakers. They found they could produce a unique frequency response curve, based on how devices play and record a common set of frequencies.
Amplifiers and Oscillators. A team at the Technical University of Dresden developed a tracking method that exploits variations in the radio signal of cell phones. The collection of components such as power amplifiers, oscillators and signal mixers can all introduce radio-signal inaccuracies.
Bojinov and colleagues presented further work at the RSA Conference 2015, in “Sensor ID: Mobile Device Identification via Sensor Fingerprinting.” Among findings:
We have found ways to construct a device ID by sensor fingerprinting.
All the sensors’ fingerprints may sum up to enough bits to identify all devices.
It is hardware dependent.
It can be used by web application.
A related presentation stated that “this is only the beginning. Many more unexpected information leakages will be found in the coming years. Treat every app you install as having ‘root’ on the phone. And think twice before installing that ‘harmless’ game.”
Engineers at Robert Bosch GmbH in Germany focused on MEMS-based gyroscopes and showed via wafer-level measurements and simulations that it is feasible to use the physical and electrical properties of these sensors for cryptographic key generation, a key requirement for full rollout of the Internet of Things.
Teams from Virginia Tech and the University of Essex have published papers detailing similar approaches, basically turning this vulnerability into a tool. “We prove that device identification can be generated by using the accelerometer found in many pervasive devices,” wrote the Essex researchers. “Our experiments are based on a set of health sensors equipped with a MEMS accelerometer. Periodic readings are obtained from the sensor and analyzed mathematically and statistically to generate a stable ICMetric number.”
Alissa Fitzgerald aided in assembling this overview report.
PoLTE Corporation has developed technology that harnesses the global long-term evolution (LTE) deployment to provide accurate and reliable location data.
Unlike localized solutions, such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, PoLTE’s technology leverages its Positioning over LTE (PoLTE) Macro software to achieve precision of 2 to 6 meters. The technology makes use of the sounding reference signals (SRS) embedded in an LTE handset user’s transmission. Using adapted radar location techniques, it converts portions of the LTE uplink signal into a probe signal.
The technology enables mobile network operators to deliver highly accurate location data to customers in indoor and outdoor environments.
Traditional macro cell location methods require at least three towers to see the user device to locate the device with precision. Historically, single tower deployments were limited in accuracy to the width of the sector created by the 120-degree antenna that was serving the user device. For example, at a distance of 1.5 kilometers from a base station, the cross range precision would be 4,000 meters. PoLTE Macro can improve the precision to less than 2 meters.
The benefits to leveraging network-based positioning include speed, flexibility, accuracy and data analytics. Customers for the technology include machine-to-machine and Internet of Things technologies, mobile advertising, crowd and customer tracking, and public safety.
INRIX Inc., a connected car services and movement analytics company, has released a redesigned version of INRIX Traffic for iOS and Android.
INRIX Traffic is a next-generation navigation and traffic app that learns user preferences to take the guesswork out of driving. The app integrates with a user’s calendar and learns their driving habits to create a personalized itinerary that includes automatic alerts, anticipated trips, favorite destinations and preferred routes.
Available worldwide now in the Apple App Store and Google Play, INRIX Traffic learns routines and preferences as users go about their day. INRIX Traffic adds favorite places automatically instead of requiring users to spend time inputting destinations such as home, work or school.
Based on learned activities, it creates a daily, driver-specific itinerary of anticipated trips, as well as frequent and preferred routes. By accessing calendar information on a mobile device, the app also adds events with addresses to the daily driving itinerary.
Unlike other driving apps that can provide inaccurate traffic and incidents based purely on consumer input, INRIX Traffic uses a massive crowd-sourced network of more than 275 million connected cars and devices to offer accurate map and real-time information.
INRIX Traffic proactively monitors road conditions to alert drivers of ideal departure times, changes to arrival times and optimal routes to frequent or scheduled destinations based on real-time traffic.
“We designed INRIX Traffic with one specific vision: To help drivers move through their daily lives as quickly and efficiently as possible. The app uses our advanced traffic science to make even routine trips easier,” said Bryan Mistele, president and CEO, INRIX. “Users want an app that is accurate, personalized and smart enough to work proactively for them — so we’ve integrated several highly advanced technologies into one all-encompassing app.”
INRIX Traffic uses the crowd-sourced and free OpenStreetMap (OSM) for map data. By leveraging the power of user-generated content around the world, OSM can quickly adapt to the ever-changing road network. Using OSM enables INRIX to bring a high-quality map and turn-by-turn navigation to users at no cost and without advertisements. In addition to reporting incidents along their route including accidents, police activity and road hazards, INRIX Traffic users can send map feedback directly from the app.
INRIX Traffic is powered by the same technologies the company delivers to its automotive customers such as Audi, BMW, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. These connected car services include real-time and predictive traffic, off-street parking information and drive-time alerts. INRIX will continue integrating features from its product portfolio into future versions of INRIX Traffic.
INRIX Traffic is available in eight languages in 16 countries across North America and Europe, including Canada, France, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom and United States, with additional countries coming soon.
The app is built on Autotelligent, the company’s new software development kit and integrated cloud platform that provides machine learning and route monitoring. Autotelligent can be integrated into products in multiple industries such as automotive, enterprise and mobile.
Virtual reality was huge at MWC, such as this demonstration at the ST Telecom booth. (Photo: Kevin Dennehy)
When more than 50 companies ask for interviews during the Mobile World Congress, which has grown to more than 100,000 attendees, you have to jot down what the product, service or strategy is — and then move on. So, here’s a wrap up of my four days in Barcelona.
BARCELONA, Spain — Location technologies are playing a prominent role in the development of Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled products and services, particularly for connected vehicles, at Mobile World Congress here, held Feb. 28-March 2.
One location company, Glympse, partnered with two major companies, Google and Samsung, for their location sharing products. With Google, Glympse is part of the company’s Project Tango, which provides a mobile device with 3-D motion tracking and depth sensing.
Samsung launched its Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge phones to a packed auditorium of guests and press members. While the phone has an improved camera and battery life, the S7 and S7 Edge also have Glympse’s location-sharing capability for both an installed Car Mode and an app called My Place. “The Google Tango [product] allows a mobile device to know where it is, and our location-aware product allows people to see where their friends are. It’s been a great partnership,” said Bryan Trussell, Glympse founder and CEO.
Indoor location and mobile advertising
The number of mobile advertising and indoor positioning companies at MWC seems to be increasing each year. Most companies involved say the market, which has such big players as Google, Intel and ST Telecom involved, is finally arriving.
Polestar’s Jean Chenebault, COO, said the company has its Bluetooth beacons in hospitals, airports and shopping centers. “We are at Schiphol Airport, Yale Hospital and many others. We have 600 beacons installed at the Mobile World Congress,” he said. “The market for indoor location has really grown.”
At MWC, indoor positioning vendor Indoor Atlas signed a deal with Yahoo! Japan, which is the leading Internet portal in the country with 63 billion page views a month. The company, founded in 2012 with seven employees, uses geomagnetic positions based on the magnetic sensor in a smartphone. The company’s biggest customer, Baidu, is using the magnetic positioning in its maps product, said Indoor Atlas CEO Janne Haverinen.
Another company says its system is complimentary to GPS to deliver latitude, longitude and floor-level altitude in areas the satellite-based system doesn’t work, or works poorly. “We determine positioning, again, where GPS doesn’t work well,” said Christian Gates, NextNav vice president, strategy and development. A bonus point for NextNav is that it doesn’t burn up wireless spectrum, which is expensive, unlike cellular positioning, said Tom Wrappe, NextNav vice president, ecosystem development.
Industry veteran Wrappe was with SnapTrack and went to Qualcomm when that company purchased the assisted-GPS company that helped spur location in cell phones. Gary Parsons, former XM Satellite Radio CEO, heads the company’s board of directors.
A mobile advertising company, xAd, rolled out its MarketPlace Campaign builder that allows companies to control location campaigns. Using real-time location data, MarketPlace shows marketers available visitors and brand location. “Instead of showing an advertiser just impressions and clicks to a website, with the location capability we can show them that a customer went to the store to buy Kentucky Fried Chicken,” said Dipanshu Sharma, xAd co-founder and CEO.
Kevin Dennehy in VR goggles at Samsung press conference.
TCS has new name, showcases products and services at MWC
The acquisition of TeleCommunications Systems by Comtech Telecommunications for an estimated $431 million was completed during MWC. The company will not see personnel reductions, and its operations in Annapolis, Maryland, will continue, said Jay Whitehurst, Comtech president of commercial software group.
The company had several location services at MWC, including its Trusted Location application that provides such organizations as online gaming companies and financial entities a system to identify and prevent fraud using location algorithms. The company, which launched its VirtuMedix product at the 2015 MWC, said it has signed up several doctors for the patient monitoring system.
European fleet market growing
After a slow initial period, the European market for fleet tracking products has seen phenomenal growth, said Edward Kulperger, Geotab vice president, Europe. “We have nearly 500,000 units worldwide, and sell our products through an authorized reseller network,” he said. Geotab, which has a European partnership with Telefonica, offers MyGeotab software for in-vehicle driver coaching, engine diagnostics, real-time GPS vehicle tracing and other functions for the continent’s trucking companies.
Another company, Aeris, has had ups and downs in the past eight years, but has been seeing steady growth recently, said Dan McBride, Aeris senior director of marketing. “We have 7 million connected users through a MVNO-style service provider strategy,” he said. McBride said the company’s IoT products aren’t cookie-cutter in that they are tailored for each project. Currently, the company is pursuing most IoT markets in Europe: fleet, payment, healthcare and network security, to name a few.
Skyhook offers wearables location context
Unlike the Consumer Electronics show (CES), outside of a few new products from Garmin and Mio there wasn’t a big splash at MWC for wearables. However, companies are incorporating location technology on fitness child safety and personal security wearables, said David Bairstow, vice president of product at Skyhook Wireless, which uses GPS, Wi-Fi and cell towers for hybrid positioning.
“Without location you are blind to the user’s surroundings and will be reliant on a paired smartphone to complete your solution,” he said. “The use cases are endless when you pair these devices with location, varying from the ability to save a life, to keeping tabs on your kids, to capturing and adding context to photographic memories in real time. When accuracy is of the utmost importance, precise location can fill the void. The need for location on wearable devices is obvious and opens up a new world of capabilities for the wearable industry that they haven’t had historically.”
Waze finding success in Europe
Another company with a sluggish European start, Waze, is seeing big growth in central Europe, particularly in Italy and France, said Carlos Gomez of Waze. “We are improving the product to tailor it to European driving in city centers,” he said. Part of Google, Waze doesn’t sell any data it collects from users of the crowd-sourced map product. “We don’t sell it and are concerned with companies who sell data to third parties,” Gomez said.
Saying it is the only pure-play navigation company now that HERE is owned by a German automaker consortium, Navmii says its app has been downloaded more than 26 million times in 187 countries. “Many people do not know that Navmii builds its own maps, which it sells to companies around the world,” said Peter Atalla, Navmii founder and CEO. Navmii is also very much in the connected car and autonomous driving space. We are releasing a new version of the app called Navmii AI, which uses computer vision systems to provide ADAS features to drivers.”
Like Waze, Navmii enlists its users, and the data they provide, to contribute to the map to warn the community of upcoming disruptions. “This intelligence enables Navmii to generate high-quality traffic and map data,” Atalla said. “We believe that navigation should be free to users. We make money from the data collected (traffic and mapping) and white-labeling our technologies to power other devices and apps.”
Location critical for connected car payments
Accenture, Intel and Visa collaborated on a product to demonstrate the potential for next-generation connected vehicles. The demonstration showed how it can be securely and temporarily connected to personalized profiles for car sharing services, take advantage of biometric identification technologies and use location-based services (LBS) ecosystems, said Marcello Tamietti, Accenture Mobility Connected Transport lead.
“The proof of concept is integrated with easy-to-use, safe and secure contextual commerce services to transform the car-sharing and driving experience through IoT technologies, whether the vehicle is owned by the driver or not,” he said.
Contextual commerce relies on a payments system being situationally aware, and removing friction from the payments process, Tamietti said. “In this scenario, by applying analytics to data collected from a car on the behavior of a particular driver, services can then be offered through an LBS ecosystem that match a driver’s preference, and then make paying for it [seamless],” he said.
Security issues not going away
As companies roll out products, and differentiation is important, security and data privacy will become a top priority. “Even consumers with little interest or understanding of technology will see news stories about hacked devices and companies, and as a result will look to be reassured about how secure their personal data is, but also how far that data will be ‘legally’ shared with other companies,” Tamietti said. “Recent [Accenture] research found that for nearly half of respondents, security concerns and privacy risks rank among the top three barriers to buying an IoT device or service.”
Creating a secure connected vehicle will involve cooperation among all members of the ecosystem, at every step of the manufacturing process, and throughout the vehicle’s lifecycle, Tamietti said.
Every device connected to a network is a potential source of weakness in a targeted hacking attack, said Kevin Curran, senior member of IEEE and senior lecturer at the University of Ulster. “We might also find, however, that some of the features we are adding to cars, which use a connection such as dialing 911 when a car crashes and an airbag is deployed, with the GPS coordinates leads to lives being saved. We really have to consider the benefits that come from more connected features versus the dangers that may arise to a car vulnerable to remote attacks — which will, of course, happen,” he said.
Timing important for IoT netwoks
LBS and timing information are key enablers for IoT networks and applications. The time, location and velocity accuracy provided by multi-constellation systems provides the fundamental building blocks for numerous IoT applications, said Stephen Douglas, Spirent Communications Solutions and Technical Strategy, IoT. These applications range from simple consumer monitoring devices such as pet trackers through smart-city transportation management solutions to the future of connected cars with autonomous driving controls, he said.
Because of the time-consuming and resource-intensive testing process, sometimes test conditions are unreliable, Douglas said. “With a GNSS signal simulator, you can test your device in any combination of conditions, and repeat the same test conditions over and over again to assess the impact of your modifications,” he said. “Then, when you are confident your device works well in simulated test conditions, you can significantly speed up and lower the cost of field testing by recording the RF signal environment at a test site, and playing it back to the device in the lab.”
In other Mobile World Congress news:
This year’s MWC topped 100,000 attendees for the first time. A show getting that big loses its ability to have people network, which was always the big draw for me over CES. The show had 2,200 exhibits/booths.
The big deal this year at both CES and MWC was virtual reality. Having VR goggles on most of the time at Samsung, and seeing Mark Zuckerberg walk up to announce a partnership with the Korean giant and his giant Facebook social media platform, was surreal. One company, AirPush, is leaning forward to start its own advertising on VR platforms called VirtualSky, said Cameron Peeples, Airpush CMO.
Join Lyft, BMW Group, HERE and 25 other speakers at Driverless, The Business of Autonomous Vehicles, which is March 22-23 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, San Francisco Airport. Panels feature new technology, executive insights on the future, investments, legal and cyber security and mapping. For more information, go to www.driverlessmarket.com or [email protected].
Sierra Wireless has released an advanced fleet management feature to support the company’s AirLink GX450 mobile gateway, allowing it to collect OBD-II vehicle telemetry data.
The added functionality will enable large organizations and fleet management solution providers to rapidly develop applications to monitor vehicle health and performance, helping them reduce costs, streamline operations and increase efficiency.
Managing a vehicle-based workforce involves a large group of stakeholders, including operations, IT and fleet management. By combining mobile networking and rich vehicle telematics onto a single platform that gathers and reports vehicle diagnostic data directly to applications, this new feature will simplify and centralize vehicle management across an organization. Organizations will no longer need to purchase a separate in-vehicle telematics platform to gather and monitor vehicle health data.
“We added advanced, easy-to-use telemetry to the AirLink GX450 to enable customers to simplify the adoption of vehicle telemetry solutions, including the ability to leverage their existing investment in fleet communications equipment,” said Jason Krause, senior vice president, Enterprise Solutions, Sierra Wireless.
Clevest, a provider of mobile workforce management solutions for utilities, has worked closely with Sierra Wireless through the development of the AirLink GX450’s vehicle telemetry feature to produce a complete workforce management and vehicle monitoring solution.
“Our mobile workforce platform is tightly integrated with AirLink gateways,” said Edna Menon, senior product marketing manager, Clevest. “With the GX450 telemetry feature, our utility customers can take advantage of robust vehicle diagnostic capabilities, in addition to the reliability and ease-of-use of our integrated solutions.”
The AirLink GX450 vehicle telemetry uses an optional OBD-II accessory to collect vehicle diagnostic data and send it to a remote server using an open messaging protocol (MQTT). Vehicle telemetry is designed for applications in public safety, utilities, emergency and field services, and for large organizations or fleet management solution providers that have the in-house resources to develop their own vehicle monitoring applications.
Prince’s death on April 21 highlights a fatal flaw in the United States’ antiquated 911 emergency system. When you call from cell phone, 911 doesn’t automatically know where you are. 911 often can’t determine the location of an emergency, even when the call for help comes from a GPS-equipped smartphone. Often the 911 operator can only zero in the nearest cell tower, which can be several miles away or in the next county.
