The Business section from the April 2015 issue. Download the PDF.
Includes: Mobile World Congress Report; Rohde & Schwarz Adds Testing; FAA Seeks Comments on UAS; and more
Tag: Mobile World Congress
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Mobile World Congress Sees Rise in Indoor Location Companies
Kevin Dennehy This year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was the biggest ever, with 95,000 attendees and thousands of booths, conferences and people with sore feet walking a cavernous exhibition hall. While the Geneva Auto Show ran close to the same dates, connected vehicle companies and technology were prominently featured. What was interesting, however, was the rise of indoor positioning companies and mobile advertising agencies with interest in location.
BARCELONA — Joining the 95,000 or so Mobile World Congress attendees were about three dozen companies who are offering indoor location and location advertising services. These companies have exhibited at previous conferences, but not in the numbers this year.
At the huge Fira convention center where MWC was held March 2-5, Los Altos, Calif.-based Pole Star installed more than 600 beacons for indoor location. Visitors were able to be guided to booths and other areas through an interactive map. “Business was good in 2014, we sold 10,000 beacons. We are making money,” said Christian Carle, Pole Star CEO.
One analyst said that the big change at MWC wasn’t the number of indoor positioning companies and demos, but the maturity and breadth of the technology. “Intel announced indoor positioning capabilities in their Wi-Fi chip, and had a demo that was very impressive. Many smaller companies that in past years were showing raw technology were showing polished solutions this year, such as Quuppa, MTI and Sensewhere, said Bruce Krulwich, Grizzly Analytics president, who has authored a report identifying 150 indoor positioning companies. “I definitely see a shake-out coming up, but it won’t be one technology prevailing over another. Different technologies meet different needs in the industry, and different technologies fit different sites. There are technologies that deliver universal indoor positioning, without any infrastructure or preparation, such as Wi-Fi multilateration and sensor fusion.”
Krulwich said that there is a shake-out that’s already started because there are too many companies working on similar technologies. “Start-ups in the area that don’t have differentiating innovation, don’t have integration into retail or other back-end systems, and don’t have market penetration, are already finding themselves in a challenge. But companies with clear innovations and commercial deployments will do fine,” he said.
United Kingdom-based Sensewhere is using crowdsourcing in its indoor positioning software. The software uses radios to scan for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to allow an IP location to reference the sources and form a location database.
“It’s what we call the universal indoor positioning versus venue specific indoor positioning, which can work anywhere — we just need a crowd of people. Our target partners are handset manufacturers, network operators, social media, social network providers, and also chipset guys as well,” said Rob Palfreyman, Sensewhere CEO. “So, there are obviously a lot of companies like Google looking at venues; there is Micello and TomTom looking at add-ins in the indoor location, which is great news, but it just needs to have a technology that can drive the blue dot on their map, and we feel that Sensewhere is the right place to provide that blue dot because of the crowdsourcing global nature of our approach.”
One company, which has developed a popular mobile game, is using its network to attract advertisers for its location-based ad platform. “We already have the infrastructure in place because of our mobile game. With our platform, we can allow advertisers to launch campaigns using our beacon signals and geofencing,” said Pedro Jahara, CEO of Brazil-based RevMob.
New location technology like the ability to track SIM cards was rolled out at MWC. W-Locate, which is partnering with Morpho in Thailand, is tracking SIM cards with its XimLoc product, which the company said is more accurate indoors than other technology.
Even such companies as Geotab, which is a strong player in the fleet market, are leveraging MWC to continue a foothold in the European market. The company displayed its IOX-CAN system that can send data from a mobile device to the MyGeotab system, which can be viewed an analyzed by fleet managers, said Maria Sotra, Geotab marketing manager.
Geotab also partnered with Telefonica in November 2014 to focus efforts in Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom, Sotra said.
At MWC, location-based advertising market is gaining traction as advertisers are seeing the benefit of locating and attracting customers. New York-based xAd said it has doubled its revenue for the second year. “We have billions of mobile ads processed and billions of ad impressions. The company is profitable,” said Dipanshu Sharma, xAd founder and CEO.
He said the company has expanded into France and Germany and added China to its global ad network.
Another company that is using location technology as a differentiator is Airpush, which had another big presence at MWC. The company’s Abstract Banners was a big draw to attendees. Location, particularly geofenced areas, have created a call to action for consumers, which is attractive to advertisers, said Cameron Peeples, Airpush vice president of marketing.
Connected Car Still Big Opportunity at MWC
Although the Geneva Auto Show was starting as the MWC was ending, there were still several big announcements by connected car companies in Barcelona. Even the well-publicized Samsung S6 and S6 Edge and HTC One M9 handset rollouts included Mirrorlink, the connected vehicle standard from the Connected Car Consortium.
In another big announcement, Audi and AT&T said that all 2016 model vehicles equipped with Audi connect will come with the carrier’s 4G LTE or 3G coverage. This increase in services is big because the auto giant just rolled out 4G AT&T service in Audi A3s last year.
AT&T selected Airbiquity to provide end-user registration and device management connected vehicle services for select customer programs. “Airbiquity will deliver these services to AT&T using our Choreo cloud-based connected vehicle services delivery platform and project management, engineering, and operations teams,” said David Jumpa, Airbiquity chief revenue officer. “This is a ‘white label’ agreement whereby AT&T will integrate Airbiquity’s service delivery capability into AT&T’s connected vehicle customer solutions.”
Another location company is making huge inroads in connected vehicle markets with its Glympse for Autos product. Glympse will be installed in select Volkswagen and Peugeot models through MirrorLink, said Bryan Trussel, company co-founder and CEO.
The app allows users to share location from their vehicle by setting the recipient and timer, and hitting send. The company has a similar app for Gogo inflight aviation networks to allow a person on the ground to know where an airplane is for picking up passengers.
In other connected car news, Accenture is providing Fiat Chrysler Automobiles the capability of in-car, Internet-based services. Starting with the new Fiat 500X, Uconnect Live services, which was co-developed by Accenture, will power an infotainment system that offers music and news services, social network access, the ability to monitor driving style and a range of diagnostic services.
Accenture also partnered with Visa for an IoT-based connected car commerce test. At MWC, the company tested a scenario where drivers could order food from the car using cellular, Bluetooth and beacon connectivity. Accenture deployed a similar system with BMW’s ConnectedDrive, which allows customers to choose services in real time for a vehicle.
Health Market Even Has Location Potential
Niche location applications are growing as Internet of Things, or IoT, markets start to grow. One company taking advantage of the mobile market is Annapolis, Md.-based TCS, which featured its VirtuMedix platform in its MWC booth.
The platform is tailored to emergency physicians as part of the growing market for video telemedicine products and mobile health, said Jay Whitehurst, TCS commercial software group president. “It’s already saving lives,” he said of the platform, which combines encryption, navigation, mapping and messaging.
While the product, now being rolled out in a North Carolina emergency medicine group, provides patients with an alternative to urgent care centers and emergency rooms, it also can be used for longer term cases such as assisted living and rehab centers, the company said.
Whitehurst said TCS has made several company acquisitions that have played a part in new product rollouts, which include the company’s Trusted Location. The application allows financial firms, online gaming companies and others to identify and prevent credit-card fraud. The application identifies and validates a device’s location worldwide.
In other Mobile World Congress news:
- Spirent said its simulators have the capability to evaluate Wi-Fi Offload and Wi-Fi performance of mobile devices on its test framework. The new product allows companies to test multiple devices on a single unit to cover Wi-Fi/LTE mobility and interoperability. The testing is important in light of wireless carriers’ strategy to extend VoLTE in areas where cell coverage is limited, said Saul Einbinder, Spirent vice president, venture development.
- Google Waze said its Google Mobile Service (GMS) will be available as a preinstall option on mobile devices. OEMs and carriers can preinstall the app on their handsets so consumers can use the service immediately, the company said.
- Trimble’s ALK said its ALK Maps and route visualization software is now available in Europe. ALK Maps, launched in the United States in 2012, allows users to overlay routing, geocoding points, weather and other features, the company said.
- Although the announcement was not made at MWC, but has huge implications for mobile, Uber’s purchase of veteran location company deCarta was a big one. The deal’s financial terms were not disclosed, but the question legitimizes Uber’s desire to be a major autonomous vehicle player like Google.
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MWC 2015: Rohde & Schwarz Adds Testing for Russia’s Emergency Calling
Rohde & Schwarz adds ERA GLONASS to its reliable test solution for in vehicle emergency call systems. Photo: Rohde & Schwarz Effective January 1, 2015, all new car models introduced to the Russian market must be equipped with the automatic ERA-GLONASS emergency call system. Rohde & Schwarz now offers a standard compliant test solution for manufacturers and suppliers of these in-vehicle systems.
Rohde & Schwarz is demonstrating its ERA-GLONASS test setup at Mobile World Congress, being held this week in Barcelona, Spain.
The test setup consists of the R&S CMW500 wideband radio communication tester and R&S SMBV100A vector signal generator as a GNSS simulator. This setup allows manufacturers and suppliers of automatic in-vehicle systems (IVS) to perform reliable and reproducible pre-conformance tests on their ERA-GLONASS modules in the lab.
In the Russian Federation, ERA-GLONASS works much like the European Union’s eCall system. When an accident occurs, the IVS connects with a public safety answering point (PSAP) via the local wireless communications network and transmits a standardized minimum set of data (MSD). In addition to GLONASS or GPS coordinates, the MSD also contains data with information about the accident vehicle as specified in ERA-GLONASS. If no voice connection can be made or if data cannot be transferred via the voice channel, the MSD is sent to the PSAP via SMS. This fallback option is a special ERA-GLONASS feature. The Russian system is also certified for 2G and WCDMA networks.
Rohde & Schwarz developed its R&S CMW-KA095 application software to meet ERA-GLONASS requirements in line with Russia’s GOST specification. Based on the R&S CMW-KA094 eCall software, the R&S CMW-KA095 simulates a PSAP and controls the R&S CMW500 emulating a wireless communications network in the lab. The software also controls the GNSS simulator that supplies the coordinates required for vehicle localization. With this solution, users can verify whether their IVS modem is able to successfully initiate an emergency call, transmit the correct MSD and establish a voice connection with a PSAP. The results are interpreted in line with the GOST specification.
The ERA-GLONASS SMS protocol has also been integrated into the test solution, making it possible to test the SMS functionality of the IVS modem when no voice connection is available.
The test solution is fully automated because of the R&S CMWrun sequencer software. The R&S CMW-KT110 eCall/ERA-GLONASS test package provides a user-friendly, automated functional test in line with GOST55330, enabling users to verify the operability of an entire system in the lab and document it in a report.
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MWC 2015: Rohde & Schwarz Adds Option for Analyzing Mobile Apps to Test Solution
R&S CMW-PQA Test System for Performance Quality Analysis, by Rohde & Schwarz. Rohde & Schwarz is presenting its new over-the-top (OTT) application analysis solution at Mobile World Congress, being held this week in Barcelona, Spain. The solution enables network operators and mobile device manufacturers to quickly and easily analyze and assess the behavior of OTT apps on mobile devices the data traffic they cause.
The additional software option is for the established R&S CMW-PQA performance quality analysis test system.
OTT apps are applications such as YouTube and WhatsApp that use mobile networks, but are not a service offered by the network operator. Such apps can cause uncontrolled data traffic on an operator’s network and excessively drain mobile phone batteries.
The R&S CMW-PQA OTT software now allows users to check which server the OTT app registers with, the number of connections it initiates and the network traffic volume it generates. The R&S CMW500 wideband radio communication tester, the core component of the R&S CMW-PQA, also offers a unique IP and protocol statistical analysis function that enables users to analyze how much the OTT app drains the mobile phone battery. The PACE software fromRohde & Schwarz subsidiary ipoque integrates this precise application identification function into the device.
The intuitive user interface enables users to quickly and easily configure tests as usual, Rohde & Schwarz said. Analysis results are available in a clearly structured graphical report. Users will have a clear overview of an app’s data throughput over time, its connected and idle state information, and when RRC messages were initiated.
The OTT solution for the R&S CMW-PQA test system is now available from Rohde & Schwarz. Customers who already have an R&S CMW-PQA do not need to purchase a hardware upgrade. A software upgrade is all that is required to add the OTT functionality to their system.
The test setup for OTT application behavior is on display at Hall 6, Booth C40, at Mobile World Congress.
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Markey Report Concerns Connected Vehicle Industry
Editor’s note: Dennehy is GPS World’s editor for location-based services, writing a monthly column for the LBS Insider newsletter. The views expressed are his own. He will be covering the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for GPS World. Contact him at [email protected] with your news.
Sen. Ed Markey’s new car technology report, released earlier this month, basically says that connected vehicles can be hacked, causing danger to drivers and presenting major privacy concerns. While some critics believe Markey’s report was meant to drive media hysteria, others say it raises serious issues that the industry needs to address. In other location news, I’ll be covering the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for GPS World. What will be the showcased location technology? Wearables? Connected vehicles? Or something new?
Kevin Dennehy By Kevin Dennehy
A report released by Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) earlier this month says that even though drivers have come to rely on new connected technologies, automakers haven’t done their part to protect them from cyber attacks or privacy invasions
First reported by CBS News’ 60 Minutes, Markey’s report, Tracking & Hacking: Security & Privacy Gaps Put American Drivers at Risk, includes information from 16 automobile manufacturers who were given questions about security and privacy. However, few of the carmakers’ answers included how vehicles may be vulnerable to hackers — and what driver information is collected.
Location industry veteran Kim Fennell, deCarta CEO, said the report should be a real concern to the industry. “But it’s more of an issue for autonomous driving and the security of the car’s electronic control system. Even today, the OnStar service, which was a pioneer in the connected car space, can remotely slow your vehicle down in the event of a theft,” he said. “This feature, if hacked, could definitely create massive problems if the proper security technologies are not implemented.”
Markey’s report raised additional concerns about the use of navigation and other features that record and send location or driving history information.
Fennell said there should be a distinction between the infotainment systems in the vehicle and the on-board control systems of the car.“We believe that there should be a strict firewall between these systems so that nothing malicious can happen that is initiated from the connected infotainment system. Any data should flow one way — from the control system of the car to the infotainment system,” he said. “This is not to say that the connected infotainment system shouldn’t be secure, it should be. In working with our OEM and Tier One partners, we have implemented strict security protocols between our servers and their apps.”
Markey’s report found that “[automakers] use personal vehicle data in various ways, often vaguely to ‘improve the customer experience’ and usually involving third parties, and retention policies — how long they store information about drivers — vary considerably among manufacturers.”
In addition, the report found that customers are often not made aware of data collection and, when they are, they often cannot opt out without disabling features, such as navigation.
Percentage of Vehicles that can record driving history Overall, Fennell hopes that the most malicious thing that could happen in the event of a hack of an infotainment system is that a “Pandora station is changed to play nothing but Justin Bieber songs, the traffic information for your route is projected to be ridiculously long or the Yelp rating of the restaurant that you are going to is lowered down to one star.”
Ultimately though, the driver should be in control of the car and nothing in the infotainment system should affect the behavior of the vehicle, Fennell said.
In terms of driver safety, in a recent survey, deCarta found that more than two-thirds of respondents considered dashboard screens that display videos and other Internet content to be the most dangerous types of onboard information systems. Approximately 79 percent of those polled preferred “voice-activated mapping systems that allow drivers to keep their eyes on the road” as an essential safety-enhancing feature.
“There are two things that infotainment systems could do better to prevent driver distraction. First, instead of replicating the stove-piped app store environment of the smartphone, in-car infotainment services could be better integrated,” Fennell said. “If I find a destination on Yelp, I’d like to send that to my navigation system instead of typing in the address. Second, with today’s better automated speech-recognition technology and text-to-speech engines, it’s now possible to make requests of your infotainment system using natural language commands. Voicebox is doing some great things in this area.”
Fennell said that most existing systems are not connected. “But those that are, aren’t predictive enough. Your navigation/infotainment system should almost work as a concierge,” he said. “It should recognize what time it is and realize you are most likely leaving for work and offer up the best route based on traffic conditions. It should recognize that you are going to a destination in an urban area and offer the most convenient parking to your destination.”
Company Rolls out Indoor Positioning Product that Doesn’t Require Retailer Involvement
After testing and demoing the product in San Francisco last year, IndoorAtlas is rolling out a consumer app called GPSindoor, which uses smartphones to locate shoppers inside a mall. The product features product proximity advertising to allow shoppers to see where they are relative to a product for promotion marketing.
The product includes a crowdsourcing function to allow user-generated data to build indoor maps, wayfinding and other options for shopping promotions, said Wibe Wagemans, IndoorAtlas president.
“We don’t need any retailers per se. We need only the shopper and [their] smartphone,” he said. “There is no brand or retailer involvement if you use our app. Unlike Wi-Fi and Bluetooth beacons, since GPSindoor relies on a community of shoppers, it allows for higher accuracy than static maps. That gives us the confidence to take on the giants like Apple Beacons and Google Indoor Maps head on — we are completely independent of retailers and not dependent on them for our success in becoming the GPS of indoors.”
In other location news:
- HERE released a new version of its mapping system for Android, saying it made significant improvements. According to the company’s blog, after more than 3 million downloads, it is shedding the “beta” label with this version. In the beta version, when users asked for a route, the app gave them three car routes. If a user wanted public transit or pedestrian routes, they had to switch to the appropriate tab. This process was slow and inconvenient for people who don’t use a car all the time, HERE said.
- In its recent financial statements, Garmin indicated a growing, and profitable, segment is its wearables/fitness band product line. Mio is also expanding its wearable offerings. This should be a big topic at next months’ Mobile World Congress.
I’ll be covering the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for GPS World. Contact me at [email protected] with your news.
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MWC 2015: Anritsu to Showcase Cloud-Based Connected Car System for Fleets
Photo: Anritsu Anritsu plans to showcase a sophisticated, cloud-based connected car system for fleet tracking at Mobile World Congress 2015, which will be held in Barcelona March 2-5. The system was developed by the University of Hertfordshire in the UK with the help of network simulation technology from Anritsu.
The system will be demonstrated using a GNSS simulator from Spectracom to provide location information to the system being tested.
The connected car demonstration will show a car’s diagnostics system connecting to the cloud via a simulated LTE network environment provided by Anritsu’s mobile network simulator, the MD8475A. An application in the cloud enables a fleet manager on any Internet-connected device to view the location and operating parameters of any vehicle in the fleet in real time.
The MD8475A enables the university’s development team to test, from their Hertfordshire laboratory and with a single instrument, how the system’s in-car LTE modem would perform in mobile networks all across the world, and operating according to all major worldwide standards.
The combination of the MD8475A and the Spectracom simulator provides a complete test environment, to simulate any global location, and any type of cellular connectivity, to ensure correct operation of the system. This test bed will showcase the effectiveness of a complete wireless test-bed solution, to enable cost-effective development testing, product validation, and customer experience evaluation within a single system.
Anritsu Corporation has been a communications provider solutions for more than 110 years, with test and measurement solutions including wireless, optical, microwave/RF and digital instruments, operations support systems and solutions that can be used during R&D, manufacturing, installation and maintenance.
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Location-Based Advertising Getting Higher Visibility
Airpush When one talks about the worldwide location industry, mobile resource management — fleets and trucks, for instance — aren’t sexy at all, but they make money. What is supposed to be sexy is location-based advertising. According to many analysts, location-based advertising has been hampered by a few things: education for both consumers and mobile advertisers, privacy issues, and relevant proximity information so folks can use it to make purchases. Another concern could be the expense of rolling out indoor beacons.
BARCELONA—Major consumer privacy concerns aside, companies are starting to see growth in location-based advertising, with new markets emerging in Europe. While the numbers of mobile advertising companies has decreased at the Mobile World Congress, held here in February, from just two years ago, the remaining players are seeing a more mature market.
Mobile advertisers are beginning to realize that location is the Holy Grail for growth, said Cameron Peeples, Airpush vice president of marketing. “People going into New York from Newark during rush hour can receive a different call to action because of a created geo-fence. Advertisers can determine whether the traveler is there on business or looking for a hotel and other travel deals,” he said.
Before Mobile World Congress, Los Angeles-based Airpush partnered with AirX, a large mobile ad exchange company. The majority of the AirX inventory, about 120,000 Android applications, includes highly-sought-after GPS location data, the company said.
There are large differences between the North American and European markets for mobile advertising, Peeples said. “The mobile advertising market [in Europe] is definitely evolving. The European market is key for us, dramatically higher than other markets,” he said. “[The European] market seems to have people connected to a lot of things — they are more mobile, use public transportation more, and always have a phone that is more centric to who they are.”
Making location-based advertising relevant to the consumer is still a major challenge. “Our focus next year is on native advertising. Native advertising combines not only the right message, but the right delivery vehicle,” Peeples said. “No one bicycling enthusiast wants ads tailored for someone who wants flowers.”
Peeples said the privacy issues are a big deal, but his company’s services are opt-in. “A lot of it is loyalty advertising. It’s all opt-in,” he said.
xAd Partners with Waze, Sees UK Growth
Another mobile advertising company, New York-based xAd, is also making inroads in Europe. “We are in the UK right now, which is really WiFi-focused. A lot of our early [location-based] advertising efforts are in education — to educate consumers and the advertising agencies about the power of location and mobile,” said Monica Ho, xAd vice president of marketing. “Not all location is created equal. The real value of [location-based advertising] is the proximity target to market to.”
Right before Mobile World Congress, Waze selected xAd as its third-party provider of search and display mobile ads in the United States. Waze, which was bought by Google in a deal worth more than $1 billion, is a top three map and navigation app in the iTunes store — a ranking that was probably helped by the Apple Maps debacle in 2012.
The companies say the deal will place xAd’s mobile ad targeting technologies into Waze’s location-based advertising platform.
Ho said there are still two areas of concern for location-based advertising: relevancy to the consumer and privacy issues. “There was privacy backlash from Nordstrom collecting consumer information from their Wi-Fi system,” she said, referring to the controversy last year when the retailer was accused of capturing consumer information during an indoor positioning test.
Apple to Roll out Upgraded Maps on iPhone 6
Speaking about Apple Maps, many industry analysts says the company has come a long way since the very public embarrassment nearly two years ago over map inaccuracies and flaws. The company recently released iOS 7.1, but is expected to rollout iOS 8 when the iPhone 6 debuts later this year.
With the debut of the iPhone 6, an updated version of Apple Maps will also be released, according to published reports.
Last year, Apple bought two companies, HopStop and Locationary, to allow the company to entrench itself once more in the location business. How firmly those roots prove to be, and how well they serve the company against archrival Google, remain to be seen.
Apple has been stockpiling companies and mapping software since its introduction of Apple Maps on iOS devices, which had a rough start. GPS World’s LBS Insider reported extensively on the problems Apple encountered with its mapping software. Some of these problems included sending drivers to a wrong location and direction.
After the mapping software problems were made public, Apple CEO Tim Cook apologized for the mapping software’s problems and even suggested that users go to such competitors as Waze, MapQuest, and Microsoft’s Bing.
In other location news:
- A Wall Street Journal reporter basically said there was nothing much new at Mobile World Congress — and that the excitement and action was at the outlying conferences at Fira Montjuic. One of these more interesting conferences, Four Years From Now, or 4YFN, featured start-up companies making pitches and displaying their new products, some of which included location capability.
- The Mobile World Congress final stats. Organizers said MWC had more than 85,000 attendees from 200 countries — an increase of 13,000 from the previous year. It’s now being touted as the biggest and best wireless show.
- In February, GPS World reported that TruePosition had purchased Skyhook for an undisclosed price. Skyhook provided location services to a number of companies including Apple and Samsung. The interesting issue is Skyhook’s lawsuit with Google, which alleged that the Internet giant influenced smartphone manufacturers to abandon the Boston-based company. According to published reports, the legal action still is going forward.
- AT&T Mobility is shuttering its location-based Alerts marketing program. The company said it would release an updated version later this year. AT&T Mobility launched Alerts in late 2012. It featured free opt-in, location-based text message alert service. Participating retailers included Stapes, Gap, Zales, Neiman Marcus, and others.
- I didn’t go to South by Southwest. Is my cool-guy card revoked? One of the reasons I didn’t is because, outside of meetings that were not part of the conference, there was not one location industry announcement made there. Maybe something will change my mind next year, but call me an old fogey — I just didn’t see the need to go to Austin this year.
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Mobile World Congress Features Connected Cars, Indoor Positioning
Mobile World Congress 2014. The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has turned into a mini Consumer Electronics Show. The term “Internet of Things” is the new hot buzz word this year. The show had an estimated 75,000 attendees spread across two sites and eight football-field-sized exhibit halls. While the connected car continued to have high visibility, other technology such as location-enabled advertising and indoor positioning received buzz.
BARCELONA — Fueled by connected car popularity, automakers and vendors converged on the Mobile World Congress here to assess the market in a continent that has not fared well economically. Some say the European market for location products is slower than that of North America — others say it is doing fine.
In this climate, a few automobile analysts have indicated they were worried that a large player such as Google or Apple will swoop in and take control of the connected car market — and tell automakers what to put in a vehicle. Last month, Google even formed its own group, the Open Automobile Alliance, with GM, Honda, Audi, Hyundai and chipmaker Nvidia.
Jorg Brakensiek, Car Connectivity Consortium chair of technical work group and Nokia principal architect, smart devices, doesn’t believe that Google will tell automakers what to do when it comes to connected vehicles. “Android is a consumer electronic device. Completely different than what we do,” he said. “Certainly, there are complimentary applications. We are not dominated by a single partner.”
At MWC, the Car Connectivity Consortium, or CCC, rolled out MirrorLink Developer Fast Track to allow developers to gain MirrorLink certification, an industry standard for car-smartphone interoperability, for their connected car applications. “We believe in standardization of the technology. But also do not put restrictions on business models and feel we allow a very open ecosystem [for members],” Brakensiek said.
Several industry analysts have said that the connected car market will eventually drive the autonomous vehicle movement, also championed by Google. Brakensiek said people still have to make the decisions — driverless cars initially will not be fully autonomous. “People have to make the judgment whether to hit the kid, or drive into a car next to them. Will that decision be made entirely by a car? I hope not,” he said.
CCC said that Coyote, Glympse and Parkopedia are the first developers admitted to the program. CCC said developers will have access to technical support, social media and press inclusion, promotion of the application among members and other benefits.
At an MWC developer’s conference, CCC said that Peugeot Citroen will roll out two MirrorLink-enabled vehicles, the C1 and 108, at the Geneva International Motor Show.
One company, Cincinnati-based RacoWireless, has been working with a number of overseas wireless carriers as well as automakers to power connected vehicles. The company recently signed a deal with AT&T Mobility to connect the Audi A3 line to LTE. As GPS World reported, AT&T had announced its LTE commitment to Audi at CES.
“We want to have our customers get the connectivity they need. We have signed dozens of carriers [worldwide], but now we are looking at more strategic partnerships,” said John Horn, RacoWireless president, who also says the Latin America is a growing market, working with its carrier partner, Telefonica, there.
At MWC, RacoWireless said it would integrate Inmarsat’s M2M service into its Omega Management Suite. The OMS is a cloud-based dashboard that helps to enable RacoWireless’ network of more than 1,000 providers. The deal could be significant as satellite connectivity services, required in remote areas, are growing in the M2M market.
Magellan Boss Outlines Strategic Vision
One of the companies trying to establish deep roots in the connected vehicle market is Magellan. Peggy Fong, Magellan president, said the company’s strategic focus is now in two areas: Wearables and connected vehicles.
“We have set a clear direction for the company in next few years. Our focus will be the cloud connected car, which is not traditional navigation,” she said. “Our other focus will be wearables. We saw that market coming when we identified that [portable navigation device] sales were declining five years ago.”
Magellan’s first foray into the wearable/smartwatch market wasn’t a success. The new product, Echo, was launched at CES, works with a smartphone. “The first product built a foundation. We are focusing on the sports watch market, which is different than the fitness market,” Fong said.
In addition to Magellan’s rollout, Garmin teamed up with Sony at MWC to offer navigation on a smartwatch. The app has speed warnings, traffic tracking, social media capability. The unit, launching later this spring, has a monthly service charge.
Fong believes that navigation on a watch won’t catch on because consumers are already carrying a smartphone with that capability. “We don’t believe navigation is the best use for a watch,” said Fong, who indicated that the company was working on other applications for its own wearable product.
Garmin also is offered its Navigon, Streetpilot navigation units for iPhones, iPad, Android and Windows phones at MWC. Its Head-Up Display Plus was getting a lot of buzz at the Showstoppers event the day before the conference.
Established Location Companies Exhibit at MWC
Telecommunication Systems’ two location entities — one based in California and the other in Washington state — displayed location-based services and navigation systems at MWC.
TCS rolled out its DopplerNav embedded weather overlays at the show. The company is also trying to establish a foothold with European wireless carriers with its Gokivo 2.0 location-based technologies for both Android and iPhone smartphones.
“Users can see real-time weather and be able to adjust routes around it. The released version of the product is scheduled for April, but we are rolling it out in Europe,” said Michael Loo, TCS senior marketing manager, of the new DopplerNav unit.
The company’s Seattle unit, which was made up of former Autodesk employees, is seeing inroads in Latin American markets. Europe, however, has been a tough nut to crack as carriers haven’t signed up for its white label locater product.
“Our Family Locater and Workforce Locator products are doing well in Latin America. We are trying to gain a foothold here in Europe,” said Javier Ferraez, TCS senior product manager, location applications.
Overall, TCS was one of the companies that had been hurt by Google’s free maps and navigation, but is now seeing growth in niche LBS and navigation areas.
Also at MWC, Nokia’s Here unit had a few product announcements such as a mapping product with CNN; Here maps and turn-by-turn navigation integration into the parent company’s first Android-based phone, Nokia X (which doesn’t incorporate Google maps and navigation); Here Auto Cloud that powers Volvo navigation; and even location-based games.
Where’s Indoor Positioning?
Some of the usual industry players had displays on indoor positioning, but there were no big announcements. Such companies as SK Telecom displayed beacons with centimeter-level accuracy that leverage Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and UWB technology.
“We have indoor and outdoor beacons. The outdoor beacons can last three years without a battery change,” said John Kwon, Idolink CEO, who was displaying a system that is not on the market to assess European carriers’ interest.
SK Telecom displayed its augmented reality platform, also not yet on the market, which allows users to point a camera at an object, have it identified, mapped/located and described. The company says it will allow the development of many business-to-business and business-to-consumer augmented reality services and content by third-party developers. This may open the door to several markets such as advertising agencies, education and publishing companies.
In other Mobile World Congress news:
- ALK Technologies showed off its free CoPilot GPS app, which has turn-by-turn navigation. The app has a new feature called CommuteMe, which learns a driver’s daily commute routing, tracking streets and freeways they frequently use. ALK was another company that focused on enterprise markets, particularly when Google invaded the market with free maps and navigation.
- Is the Mobile World Congress outgrowing Barcelona? Seems as if it is almost as hard to get a hotel room, flight and other travel as it is to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. One attendee said he found great lodging near the conference, but obtained it in October. Others in the industry believed that the enormous trade show is getting too expensive — and too far away — to realistically attend and market products and services.
- There were many more meeting rooms this year than at previous MWCs. Many companies are opting in on these private venues to talk with customers and potential customers.
- Mark Zuckerberg came out in his trademark short sleeved T-shirt and jeans. He promoted Internet.org, an effort to get the web into underdeveloped countries. Of course, he was talking to a room of wireless executives and others who would have to build/pay for that capability. He also said he was done acquiring companies for now — does that mean there will be no $19 billion Whatsapp pay day for a location company?
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Qualcomm Offers Commercial Advanced Chipset for Automotive
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., has added the Qualcomm Gobi 9×30 platform with extended lifecycle support to Snapdragon Automotive Solutions, enabling advanced telematics and infotainment features for next-generation systems.
The announcement was made at Mobile World Congress, being held this week in Barcelona, Spain.
Based on Qualcomm Technologies’ fourth-generation LTE platform, the Gobi 9×30 supports LTE Advanced Category 6 with up to 300 Mbps downlink data rates, enabling broadband vehicle connectivity for enhanced navigation, Wi-Fi hotspot, infotainment content and telematics services.
Gobi 9×30 builds upon Qualcomm Technologies’ LTE modem technology for automotive, the Gobi 9×15, and promises to enable a superior next-generation GNSS engine and fast 3G and 4G LTE connections worldwide, while supporting broad multi-region coverage in a single SKU with the Qualcomm RF360 front-end solution. The Gobi 9×30 is based on the 20-nm technology node with support for global carrier aggregation deployments up to 40 MHz in both LTE FDD and TDD modes. The Gobi 9×30 features broad multi-mode capability with support for all other major cellular technologies, including LTE TDD networks in China.
In addition to 3G/LTE connectivity, the new platform is pre-integrated with QCA6574, a dual-stream 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1 chipset designed to simultaneously support in-car Wi-Fi hotspot functions and Bluetooth profiles. The QCA6574 also supports DSRC (dedicated short-range communications), a technology required to comply with future regulation recently announced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to increase safety through vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. The Gobi 9×30 and QCA6574 will also be pre-integrated with Qualcomm Technologies’ recently-announced automotive-grade Snapdragon 602A processor.
“The need for high-speed connectivity in the automobile is driving ever-increasing data rates as well as greater integration of features and technologies,” said Kanwalinder Singh, senior vice president of business development for Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Adding Gobi 9×30 to our technology leading LTE lineup offers to our module, Tier-1 and automaker customers the flexibility of a global SKU with next-generation LTE features including data rates up to 300 Mbps and carrier aggregation. The Gobi 9×30 sets a new bar for features and integration: 20 nm technology node; support for both LTE FDD and TDD modes; built-in next-generation GNSS engine; pre-integration with Snapdragon 602A; and pre-integration with QCA 6574, supporting 802.11ac, BT 4.1, and DSRC.”
Gobi 9×30 is currently sampling to customers.
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Blackphone Designed for Privacy Launches At Mobile World Congress 2014
photo: SGP Technologies SGP Technologies, a joint venture of Silent Circle and Geeksphone, has unveiled the Blackphone, a smartphone that places privacy and control directly in the hands of its users. The smartphone was launched at Mobile World Congress being held this week in Barcelona.
Blackphone includes a unique combination of operating system and application tools that offer unparalleled security and privacy to information workers, executives, public figures, and anyone else seeking privacy, the company said. Blackphone’s PrivatOS, built on Android and combined with a full suite of privacy-enabled applications, “allows users to regain control over their communications activities. No longer will the use of a smartphone demand acceptance of unauthorized surveillance, commercial exploitation of activity data, and the loss of privacy, security and fundamental human rights,” the company said in a press release.
Blackphone is powered by a >2 GHz quad-core SoC and features a full set of premium features, including GPS, a 4.7-inch HD IPS screen, LTE, HSPA+, 2GB DDR3 RAM, 16GB of storage, >8MP primary camera with flash and 1.3MP front camera, Bluetooth 4.0, and 802.11n WiFi.
Blackphone comes unlocked and features several pre-installed privacy tools, including the Silent Circle suite of apps (Silent Phone, Silent Text, and Silent Contacts); anonymous search, private browsing, and VPN from Disconnect; and secure cloud file storage from SpiderOak. In addition, Blackphone ships with the Smart WiFi Manager from Mike Kershaw, Chief Architect for SGP Technologies, and a powerful remote-wipe and device recovery tool.
Blackphone is available for pre-order to individuals and enterprises as an unlocked device with a starting price of US$629, and will also be available through selected partner carriers from launch, including KPN Mobile, the inaugural launch carrier for Blackphone serving European regions including Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. Customers will always have the option of buying direct rather than through a carrier if that is their preference.
Blackphone is scheduled to ship to the first end users in June 2014, and testing units will be provided to partner carriers in the April timeframe.
