GPS World

Tag: Wireless LBS Insider

  • 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.

  • Google Enhances 3D Maps: Is It Enough To Keep Competitors at Bay?

    Kevin Dennehy
    Kevin Dennehy

    Google’s recent announcement that it plans to enhance its 3D maps on the Android platform was seen as a preemptive strike against Apple, which is planning a similar announcement. In other recent news, some analysts and trade press are saying Verizon is paying way too much for Hughes Telematics. All of this is making for an interesting summer for the location industry.

     

    Google recently demonstrated new 3D capability for Google Earth, in a move that some say preempted a similar announcement by Apple, which will roll out its own product at our deadline during the Worldwide Developers Conference.

    While Apple is set to announce its own version of a mapping program for iOS that does not use Google Maps, some in the industry are wondering if the 3D capability is enough for developers to stay with Google, particularly with the fees the company is charging high-volume users. The big winner in the Apple announcement was TomTom, which has signed a global agreement with Apple for maps and related information. No further details of the agreement will be provided, the company said.

    In terms of upstaging Apple via 3D, one company executive thinks that is overblown. “I don’t think Google was trying to do that directly on just that feature. I think they are very concerned about the Apple announcement — not just because they will lose Apple as a customer, they will, but because they fear a ‘wow’ factor upstaging them despite all the great work [Google] has done to date,” said Kim Fennell, deCarta president and CEO. “Their press conference last week was more about reminding everyone how hard it is to do this stuff really well, and I think they wanted to remind Apple, and the market, it takes a lot do the complete mapping solution really well. I think their Google Earth capabilities with street views and their new 3D modeling is a major investment and they wanted to set the overall bar high for Apple.”

    DeCarta says half of its new developers are coming from Google Maps. The company says that, in the last 90 days, 488 new companies have signed up to its developer’s program.

    In a white paper, de Carta says:  “The timing of this surge confirms that Google is no longer seen as the ‘Benevolent Provider of Free Stuff’ that it once was. What is more surprising is that not all of the companies jumping ship are big guys…in fact some are not even close to the 25,000/day map threshold that Google uses to trigger the hounds.”

    The company contends that there is a common theme that developers want to work within clearly defined partnerships, how much they will need to pay, and whether or not they can execute their business model — especially if that involves advertising. “They want to create some differentiation and most of all, they want to know whether or not their partner will one day decide to compete with them,” the company white paper says. This restriction trickles down to real estate, travel, local search, and other sites, the company says.

    Fennell said deCarta started working with Google competitor OpenStreetMap in 2009 when it was early in the market and there were almost no takers.  “We were too early, the market wasn’t really looking for an alternative yet — and the map data quality wasn’t good enough. Three years later, it is looking much more interesting both from supply (map data availability) and demand (customer interest),” he said.

    Verizon’s Purchase of Hughes Telematics a Financial Reach?

    To strengthen its presence in the machine-to-machine and connected car market, Verizon Communications said it plans to buy Atlanta-based Hughes Telematics Inc. for $612 million, or $12 per share. The high price has some analysts scratching their heads — particularly because Hughes was trading at only $4.35 per share the day the deal was announced.

    Hughes Telematics, which competes with OnStar, began to provide LBS, connected safety and convenience services to Mercedes-Benz customers in 2009.

    “I was frankly surprised at the valuation considering HTI’s financial position. I assume Verizon sees a lot of value in the Mercedes account and potential value in HTI’s VW account — and at least one other OEM account which they are expected to get,” said Clem Driscoll, president of CJ Driscoll Associates.  “I think it is also clear that Verizon’s plans called for increasing its role in telematics through acquisition of a telematics service provider. A previous attempt at a TSP acquisition was unsuccessful. HTI clearly has some good technology, as evidenced by the Mercedes Mbrace solution.”

    Driscoll said that Hughes Telematics’ financial problems probably discouraged some auto OEMs from using them in the past, but those issues should now be resolved.

    The Verizon-Hughes Telematics acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter. Verizon plans to retain Hughes Telematics’ management, operate the company as a subsidiary of its Verizon Enterprise Solutions group, and keep the company headquartered in Atlanta.

    ITS America Holds Small Annual Meeting — Why?

    It isn’t big news that private companies still court government contracts and attend the ITS America Annual meeting in Washington to work on connected vehicle committees. However, this is the first time I’ve covered this conference, and I’ve attended off-and-on since 1993, to notice attendance has reached the point that only a few die-hard private sector companies are going to this government-focused meeting.

    Remember, the ITS America meeting was the only game in town in the 1990s and early 2000s, with two of the dominant players at that time, Navteq and Etak (later to be purchased by Tele Atlas) anchoring a growing navigation and location industry.

    Instead of ITS America dominating the entire connected vehicle conference market, most private companies choose to attend the pricier Telematics Update Detroit meeting. What made the meeting more disappointing is the fact that ITS America does attempt to focus on the connected vehicle. The U.S. Transportation Department invited delegates and the press to a connected vehicle demonstration with Ford, General Motors, and Toyota, among other team members. The demonstration highlights this summer’s testing of 3,000 vehicles, which will test crash-avoidance technologies in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in a year-long government program.

    Still, some companies attended such as Inrix, Beat the Traffic, and TomTom. The Virginia Transportation Department is partnering with TomTom to analyze where travelers entered and exited the I-95/I-64 corridor.

    Some companies are getting ITS grants, such as Xerox, which grabbed $15 million from the U.S. DOT for a pilot program incorporating real-time parking guidance systems, among other projects. These parking systems, using smartphone apps from Streetline, enable motorists to view spaces based on price, location, and real-time availability.

    Simulators Keeping LBS Companies on Target

    Spirent Communications, which is monitoring the popularity of LBS, said its new GNSS simulator supports simulation of signals from individual or combined GPS/SBAS, GLONASS, and Galileo constellations, with eight satellites per constellation.

    The company, which said it recognizes the increase in LBS’ momentum and the market need for improved positioning performance on mobile devices, has expanded its LBS LTE test product to support an LTE Positioning Protocol and Observed Time Difference of Arrival. The company says both are critical enablers for LBS adoption.

  • Indoor Positioning: Overhyped or Just What LBS Needs?

    Because LBS Insider’s deadline is this week, CTIA coverage from New Orleans is not included in this month’s column.  Janice Partyka, editor of GPS World’s Wireless Pulse, is covering CTIA in the Crescent City for the latest location-based services, M2M, and connected vehicle news.  So instead of talking about CTIA (and why there aren’t many pure LBS players or sessions there anymore), this column examines the hype surrounding indoor positioning — is it LBS’ savior, or just another technology that may, or may not, pan out?

     

    The location industry will know very soon whether indoor positioning is just another overhyped technology niche — or the needed capability that will drive the largest advertisers and retailers to finally embrace location-based services. Some industry analysts say indoor location may take off in as few as 12 months — particularly if smartphones include the feature in new product offerings.

    At several location industry conferences, the obligatory indoor positioning panel is cropping up, leading some to believe that while intentions are good, perhaps the technology hasn’t developed fast enough. The jury is still out on indoor positioning. “It is badly needed, but also needs to be down to the meter-level,” said Ralph Eschenbach of Sand Hill Angels, a venture capital firm, at the recent GPS-Wireless 2012 conference. “The technology is not here yet.”

    Another contrarian said that industry segments like automakers need not just show users how to navigate to destination, but give folks information when they near the area. “It would be nice if a BMW told me where’s the cheapest gas,” said Gary Gale, Nokia director of places, location and commerce.

    Some analysts, like those at IMS Research, believe that an indoor positioning technology will be from multiple sources — though Wi-Fi has been the primary tech solution. IMS cites reports that say Bluetooth in Nokia’s HAIP can meet the one-meter threshold of accuracy for indoor markets.

    IMS said the major indoor positioning players, so far, are Google, Qualcomm, Broadcomm, CSR, Qubulus, Nokia, NextNav, and Path Intelligence.

    While intangible benefits such as measuring consumer behavior and shopping experience will be important for retailers and advertisers who are hoping to fund indoor positioning systems, the goal is to drive customers to the stores. This will also be tied into the “what do I do when I get there” answer to the navigation question.

    Still, the benefits will be transparent to advertisers once consumers are able to save time, and perhaps money, with indoor positioning capability on their smartphones, said Ankit Agarwal, CEO of indoor positioning company, Micello. “There is definitely a business model for indoor positioning. It enables product search and walking paths throughout a store,” he said. “Stores will be able to track multiple routes folks are interested in taking [through a store].”

    Once again, Google seems to be the major player in indoor positioning. LBS Insider reported late last year that Google went indoors with the launch of Google Maps 6.0. The company has attracted some of the big-box retail stores such as IKEA, Macy’s, Home Depot, and Bloomingdales to have their stores mapped. However, a lot of the bigger malls, and Target and Wal-Mart, have not been mapped. The Google product tells customers what floor they are on in a building, but so far is only available for Android.

    Google’s indoor mapping partners include 18 U.S. airports, which will open up more partners and LBS relationships in the future.

    In other news, but related to indoor positioning and other LBS markets, Greg Tarr, partner at Rogers Venture Partners, said at GPS-Wireless: “There is no privacy…get over it.”

    TomTom Launches Global Geocoding Web Service

    As GPS World reported, TomTom launched a new volume batch geocoding web service late last month at the Geospatial World Forum in Amsterdam. Geocoding, the process of converting addresses into geographic coordinates to allow location analysis for businesses, is taking on a new twist with the new product.

    “This not your father’s geocoding. The turn-around time to download the product will be attractive to companies,” said Dan Adams, TomTom vice president, location and live services. “When I was with GDT and we were acquired by Tele Atlas, it gave us more exposure to global geocoding. Since the TomTom acquisition, there has been a recasting of those products, with the same sort of dynamics, but bringing them to the Cloud.”

    What Investors Look for in a Location Company

    In a venture capital panel at GPS-Wireless, industry experts basically say that location markets mean more than just navigation now. They also have some strong opinions on the composition and strategies of companies they plan to invest in.

    “We notice that some startups don’t have enough engineers,” said Sanjay Subhedar, Storm Ventures managing director.

    Other VCs say they look first at the market size of the location niche, but still believe the personality of the company’s management team is important. However, there was no location market segment any VC agreed on; some were sold on the promise of enterprise markets; others believe a strictly consumer play is where the future is.

    LBS Insider Covering ITS America Conference

    Not a sexy show like CTIA or Telematics Detroit (which is being boosted by the connected car craze, despite its jaw-dropping price to attend), ITS America’s annual meeting this month in the Washington, D.C., area will feature connected vehicle sessions and government programs. Before market-centric conferences as Telematics Detroit and Where 2.0, ITS America, even with its government focus, was the only game in town for companies looking to get into the navigation and location business.

    One of these “government programs” traditionally featured at ITS America is distracted driving sessions, which at least one analyst says younger drivers don’t want to be bothered with. “Only 20 percent of young consumers are worried about distracted driving [we found in our studies],” said Thilo Koslowski, Garnter vice president, who also said, unlike what some automakers and analysts believe, that a car is not a “laptop with four wheels.”

    LBS Insider will be covering the ITS America annual meeting. If attending, contact us with your story ideas.

     

  • 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.”

  • Companies Look for Alternatives to Google Maps, but Location Giant Chugs Along…

    The big news at the recent O’Reilly Where 2.0 and GPS-Wireless conferences, both located in the San Francisco Bay Area, may be continued industry fallout from Google’s decision to start charging higher volume users. Location-based services may have jumped the shark, as one Nokia executive said at GPS-Wireless, but such deals as Foursquare’s partnership with American Express can only help grow consumer awareness and drive mobile purchases. Indoor positioning and connected vehicles continued to be a hot topic at both Where 2.0 and GPS-Wireless. Yet, at least one executive at GPS-Wireless said that “the year of LBS has come and gone — and nobody noticed it.”

     

    SAN FRANCISCO — A few companies in the location industry have decided to change mapping vendors in the wake of Google’s decision to start charging companies when their sites averaged 25,000 map views per day. Around the time of the recent 2012 Mobile World Congress, Foursquare said it would move from using Google Maps to user-contributed map service OpenStreetMap. The company said Google’s recent price increases prompted the change.

    Foursquare did not change mapping vendors because of the quality of the maps, said Holger Luedorf, Foursquare vice president and head of business development. “Google Maps are a great product. We are big fans of openness, but it was not the lack of quality why we switched,” he said at GPS-Wireless 2012.

    But while some companies are heading to other places because of the Google charging policy, the company says it is still doing well. “We did announce that Google was going to start charging for 25,000 or more [map hits]. In terms of usage, we have actually gone up since the announcement,” said Jay Akkad, Google product manager, mobile local ads, also at GPS-Wireless conference.

    One of the big topics at GPS-Wireless is the idea that the term location-based services has “jumped the shark” in terms of consumer awareness and acceptance. “What the hell is LBS? It is an enabling technology,” said Duncan McCall, PlaceIQ co-founder and CEO. “The mythical Starbucks LBS deal does not make me care. We now have advertisers who have a particular [return on investment] they are looking for.”

    At least one speaker, on a venture capital panel, said that the expression “LBS” hasn’t been useful in defining the market in at least eight years. “The huge opportunity is not location — there are tons of 100K-a-year-guys staying at the Red Roof Inn and not the Four Seasons. The huge opportunity is how people shape their habits — and location is one way,” said Prioleau Advisors’ Marc Prioleau. “Banner ads push to consumers, but the objective is loyalty. It’s the ‘we know where you are and where you go’ model.”

    In all of the talk about LBS, the usual “who pays for it” was a hot topic at GPS-Wireless. “With 150,000 ads on a platform, [the consumer] doesn’t have to pay for it,” Luedorf said.

    For the navigation piece of LBS, it still is the one area consumers know about and want, panel members said.

    “Navigation still is hot. More than half of our users choose to use carrier-branded navigation,” said Brian Salisbury, TCS director of business development. “Consumers will start marginalizing a [paid for] service when it stops producing for them. The value for the consumer is if it is bundled with other services—sometimes that bundle is subsidized.”

    People still are paying for navigation, despite attendees saying that a freemium model is the future, said Kris Kolodziej, Verizon Wireless associate director of cloud and location services. “Consumers are always going to find options. Maybe they will be looking at premium traffic [in the future],” he said.

    Groupon, which presented at GPS-Wireless, announced at the recent 2012 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that one quarter of its users purchased vouchers through a mobile service, a triple increase to more than 9 million deals. The company also said that LBS and proximity-based sales will increase because it plans to roll out mobile service in more than 30 countries soon. Currently, the company has its daily-deal service, online, in 48 countries.

    “The core foundation of our company is the daily deal. Groupon Now goes into the core of location — where we are expanding into 30 markets — so location doesn’t get more specific,” said Andreas Lieber, Groupon director of mobile partnerships. “We recently released our mobile numbers and are seeing 25 percent growth — this is a really significant revenue stream.”

    Mobile searches and deals will continue to grow, Google’s Akkad said. “Mobile searches have grown four times since 2010, according to our user surveys. This is a huge opportunity for developers,” he said. “One area we have noticed is the ability to close the loop in the location business. Businesses have to identify who is coming into their stores — that’s why hyper local ads are important — because of the proximity signal that tends to be a strong signal.”

    The big location market still is evolving, but Foursquare’s deal last summer with American Express doesn’t hurt consumer awareness. “The deal with American Express drives users to Foursquare. No one knows how it is going to play out, but we are seeing an uplift as people are spending money,” Luedorf said. “[Location is] not monetizing heavily right now — companies need scale. But it actually is selling. We believe it’s through an ad model we can build, but not a premium service. Facebook and Twitter are trying to monetize — we will see.”

    While the deal with American Express is a nationwide one where cardholders check in with Foursquare on their mobile devices at certain shops and restaurants for deals, check-ins may not be the emphasis the company wants in the future. “We are seeing more people consuming the data — not just checking in. They want to see what’s local in terms of tips for eating out and drinking and other entertainment,” Luedorf said.

    Overhyped Expressions in the Location Industry           

    One of this editor’s pet peeves is the use of the word “experience” as in “consumer experience” when a company official describes a market, product or service. In a new technology and markets panel, moderator Clay Babcock of Rand McNally asked his panel what is an overhyped expression in the location industry. Kanwar Chadha of CSR said, “GNSS triangulation, TV or otherwise.”

    Nick Brachet, CTO of Skyhook Wireless said, “near field communications.” Babcock chimed in with “augmented reality,” the expression “gadget play.” David Allen, CTO of Locaid said “anything to do with beacons.” Ankit Agarwal, Micello CEO, “any Starbucks story, especially something about a coupon.” One person said, in a conference filled with this story line, “indoor positioning is overhyped.”

    At Where 2.0, the expression “SoLoMoCo” is destined to be one of those types of overhyped monikers. SoLoMoCo stands for a busy mix of social, local, mobile and commerce.

    Panel at GPS-Wireless.

    Exhibits at GPS-Wireless.

     

  • 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?

  • Continued Growth of Connected Vehicle and M2M Highlighted at MWC

    The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is getting bigger every year — so much that it’s almost a mini CES that is hard to navigate and find companies…much less big location-based services news. While there were no big jaw-dropping mergers and acquisitions, big product roll-outs and partnerships, this conference will continue to be the main showcase for location companies wishing to establish a presence in Europe.

     

     

    BARCELONA — It was tough to find out what might be the big deal for the location industry here at the Mobile World Congress, among 67,000 attendees and more than 1,500 exhibitors. Two areas continued to stand out, as they had at the January Consumer Electronics Show: the rise of the connected vehicle and machine-to-machine connections.

    An MWC keynote was given by Ford Motor Co.’s chairman Bill Ford (right), who gave long-term strategies for the company, which includes big connected car components. Ford’s Sync, which is already on 4 million cars in the United States since it was launched in 2007, now is available in Europe. The company hopes to have 13 million cars equipped with the connected service by 2015 — 3.5 million of those in Europe.

    One of the more significant deals at MWC was Sprint Nextel’s announcement that it will be the strategic wireless partner for Chrysler Group’s Uconnect voice-activated vehicle communications system.

    In keeping with the connected theme, GSMA’s Connected House featured such companies as AT&T and Airbiquity that showcased the transfer of connected lifestyle from car to house. Airbiquity demonstrated its products for cloud-based services, mobile phones and application integration into vehicles. The company launched its Application Developer Program at MWC.

    TCS Offers Family Locator to Auto Makers for Connected Car Initiatives

    TeleCommunication Systems announced at the MWC that it’s incorporating the TCS Family Locator into connected vehicles and is offering it on the iPhone and Android platforms. TCS Family Locator allows users to locate family members’ vehicles through aerial photos or maps to monitor when they arrive or leave specific areas.

    TCS was a pioneer in enhanced 911 roll outs, which was the basis of today’s location-based services, said Jay Whitehurst, TCS senior vice president, commercial software group.

    The cloud-based Family Locator product is being offered to vehicle manufacturers, telematics service providers, and wireless carriers for connected car initiatives, the company said.

    Currently, Family Locator supports BlackBerry and other phones.

    For the enterprise market, TCS said its Workforce Locator mobile resource management product now has extended coverage to data cards and any device with a SIM card, which includes mobile Wi-Fi hotspots and tablets.

    Also at MWC, TomTom said it partnered with HTC to provide the maps, points of interest, and turn-by-turn directions for a line of HTC smartphones in India. TomTom views India as a growing market, citing a study that forecasts more than 5.2 million smartphones will ship to the country this year.

    The HTC deal is TomTom’s first major partnership in India, said Nuno Campos, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing for its licensing division. Campos said that Jocelyn Vigreux, formerly president of TomTom USA, has been consolidating all business units in India to steward the company’s HTC partnership there.

     

    TomTom also announced a partnership with NDrive to deliver maps and other content to its location-based applications. The three-year deal is big for TomTom as NDrive has millions of users worldwide, Campos said.

    When asked how TomTom is competing against the Googles of the world, Campos said that the market is big enough to run a profitable mapping business. His only crack at Google was that “they are finding that making maps isn’t easy.”

    TomTom, through its joint venture partner AutoNavi Holdings Limited, also announced a seven-year agreement with Qoros Auto, an international automotive corporation. TomTom and AutoNavi will deliver HD Traffic, marking the first real-time traffic customer for the newly expanded joint venture. In 2013 the first cars — aimed at young metropolitan users — will hit the streets in China equipped with HD Traffic, providing drivers with the most accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date traffic information available.

    In other Mobile World Congress news:

    • Urban Airship said its new Unique Opt-In Report allows users to gain insight in to the numbers of distinct users opting in or out of push notifications. This enables companies to hone mobile messaging strategy based on users’ behavior.
    • Locaaid rolled out its Global Cell-ID at MWC. This new feature, accessible via Locaid’s Location-as-a-Service (LaaS) platform, allows enterprise mobile developers to acquire carrier-certified, permission-based location on their devices in more than 165 countries around the globe.
    • American Roamer changed its name to Mosaik Solutions at MWC. Through its partnership with Europa, the company’s Global Coverage Analyzer and CellMaps are marketed in Europe. Mosaik Solutions’ customers include AT&T International, OnStar, and Comcast.
    • ALK Technologies Inc., which previously charged for its navigation applications, now said its CoPilot GPS is a free app for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. The company contends that CoPilot is a lot more than Google’s free map service and allows users to search millions of pre-installed points of interest for nearby restaurants, hotels, and gas stations. The company had a booth at MWC and exhibited at Showstoppers, as did Poynt.

    Indoor positioning continued to be a big topic to enable LBS markets at the Mobile World Congress. Richard Najarian, Broadcom senior director, business development, said that market is shaping up. The company also showed off its Bluetooth Low Energy modules that enable indoor location positioning.

     

    Some other MWC observations:

    1. Qualcomm had an off-site reception for its indoor positioning partners that included Cisco and others.
    2. The Android room at MWC was huge…with such companies as Glympse participating.
    3. Telmap, now owned by Intel, which has recently said it will invest millions into connected vehicle initiatives, has a strong presence in Europe with many LBS applications.

    The company says it’s the No. 1 local content aggregator in Europe, according to Motti Kushner, Telmap’s chief marketing officer.

    Neustar, which is partnering with TELUS and other major operators in North America to create mobile services, had a large presence at MWC. The company’s intelligent cloud helps operators to integrate location and messaging, said Gary Zimmerman, Neustar’s director of product marketing.

    Some of these applications include geofence, which Neustar works with partner ZOS, to create opt-in mobile campaigns that send offers to subscribers based on their location. The company also offers enhanced location that shows how a brand can personalize location information once a consumer gives consent to participate.

    GPS World Partnering with GPS-Wireless

    GPS World is the GPS-Wireless (www.gps-wireless.com) conference’s exclusive media partner. GPS World’s Chris Litton will be on site at GPS-Wireless 2012, which is March 21-22 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport, to discuss why location companies should advertise in the magazine and LBS Insider, which has more than 10,000 worldwide subscribers.

  • 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?

  • Government and Fleet Markets Find Steady Growth

    It’s not a market that will help users find friends or places to eat, but it seems to be one that keeps movin’ along. The government and enterprise market for location-based services seems to be steady, if not growing, as evidenced by nearly 9,000 attendees at the recent Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Topics included the 20th Anniversary of the government’s intelligent transportation systems program.

     

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Standing out among the thousands of college professors, scientists and engineers were a core of companies who have made inroads into intelligent transportation systems and other government markets here at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, held January 22-26.

    Such companies as TomTom have tried to harness the government market for the past few years with real-time traffic information. The traffic information companies contend that the government market will be big for policy makers, who need detailed support tools to make money-saving decisions for local traffic management programs.

    At TRB, TomTom announced a partnership with Delcan Corp. to provide historical traffic data for the Strategic Highway Research Program 2 (SHRP 2). The program is managed by the TRB.

    “We’ve been using our real-time traffic information, and our historic products, to work with them on traffic management and planning,” said Nick Cohn, TomTom senior business development manager.

    By using GPS-based measurements from the TomTom historical traffic database, Delcan and its partners will develop models for travel time reliability analysis and research as part of the program, the company said. TomTom says its traffic database, which uses traffic measurements, costs less money and is time-saving — compared to survey methods.

    Last year at TRB, TomTom announced a partnership with PTV where the company was able to deliver TomTom traffic content, via TomTom Traffic Stats, to its customers in the transportation sector.

    20th Anniversary of ITS Well Attended

    An introspective session at TRB was the Intelligent Transportation Systems 20th Anniversary, which was attended by industry veterans who were around when the first U.S. Transportation Department directives calling for ITS were issued. Most of the panel members agreed that when ITS was being thrown around as something that may replace Cold War contracting dollars with new markets, no one really tried to predict how technology would shape autos and communication.

    While panel members agreed that EZ-Pass was one of the big ITS accomplishments over the last 20 years, some acknowledged that GPS and the Internet and cell-phone development were never really focused on (as at least two weren’t even developed). They agreed that the automotive industry took over the market, not the government.

    “Fortunes were made — and lost. Mostly lost,” said Mort Downey, former DOT deputy secretary. Downey said the big deal in getting ITS off the ground was President Clinton’s decision to turn off GPS’ selective availability.

    Michael Noblitt of IBM’s Global Business Services remembers that the telematics market really was developed by aftermarket manufacturers. “It was an exciting time. Privacy was traded for convenience and service. Consumers now see [telematics] as valuable,” he said.

    Rich Schuman of Inrix, who was the second employee of the entity now know as ITS America, presented a timeline of technology events and tied them to intelligent transportation initiatives. “It’s a chaotic world — don’t try to find it. Focus on business incentives and leave technology to the bigger market,” he said.

    Industry old-timers remember that the ITS America and ITS World Congress meetings were the only places to get market information in the 1990s because of auto manufacturers and the two largest digital map makers at the time, Navteq and Tele Atlas/Etak, were the major players. Both meetings have seen a resurgence in the number of auto makers and traffic companies exhibiting to compete for their share of the government market.

    ALK Doing Well in European App Stores

    At TRB, LBS Insider caught up with Alain Kornhauser, ALK Technologies founder, who talked about his role in the company and what markets have been good for them in the past year. ALK has been in several publications as having the iPhone and Andriod “top app” for its CoPilot Live, which is doing well in Europe, Kornhauser said.

    “We’ve done well in respect to app stores. We also participated in the recent Iowa Caucuses when we offered directions to candidates for all 94 of the state’s counties,” he said.

    Kornhauser said that Barry Glick, former MapQuest executive who was hired last year as CEO, runs the company’s day-to-day operations. In December, ALK established a new group, Enterprise Solutions, which combined its PC MILER, CoPilot Truck and CoPilot Live Professional product lines plus supporting map data, software tools and professional services. The Enterprise Solutions Group is led by Michael Kornhauser, senior vice president and Alain’s son, who reports directly to Glick.

    While competing against free navigation applications, publications are saying that CoPilot Live has a niche because it has a friendlier interface and better directions to gas stations, restaurants and other points of interest.

    Industry pioneer Kornhauser, who was involved in autonomous vehicle testing, said that ITS was a success because of the private industry, without government impact or influence. “They didn’t stand in the way,” he said.

    Kornhauser, a long-time Princeton University professor and head of its transportation program, said he likes being an entrepreneur. “I also like the [location] space,” he said.

    In other LBS news:

    • Join us for GPS World magazine’s LBS Market in 2012 webinar, “LBS 2012 — Show Me the Money,” on Feb. 22 at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. Speakers will include several industry executives. Register for free.
    • Audiovox Electronics Corp launched its Car Connection and Care Connection products, both of which Audiovox considers LBS-capable, that will use Sprint’s Nationwide Network in the U.S.A. Car Connection is a new plug-in on-board diagnostic (OBDII) device that will allow consumers to monitor, manage and maintain not only their own but other family drivers’ habits. Care Connection is a wearable personal tracking system that features two-way voice communication to locate children, teen drivers and aging parents.
    • Persistent Systems purchased Openwave’s Mobile Location-Based business, to offer what its says will be the first enterprise carrier-based LBS. The company says the big market opportunity is that businesses want asset tracking, geo sensing and couponing.

     

  • Location Technology, All in the Cars

    Microsoft says this is its last year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Fine. Move over because the car manufacturers are using the show to unveil stunning location and mobile offerings. It has only been a few years since automakers started coming to CES to pitch new in-vehicle mobile platforms. This year automakers have been knocking themselves out to bring smartphones, location and cloud content into the vehicle to enhance the driving experience. The CES invasion by the vehicle OEMs started in 2007 when Ford introduced Sync at CES. Kia followed in 2010 with UVO powered by Microsoft. 2012 brings a multitude of OEM mobile announcements, including one from first-time CES participant Mercedes-Benz.

    Cars are getting smarter. Kia unveiled the next-generation UVO 2, which adds a crash notification assist feature that automatically dials 911 on a connected phone when an airbag deploys. It adds a number of location-based services that are controlled via a smartphone app that includes noting a car’s parked location on a map, transferring destinations from Google maps to the navigation system, and monitoring vehicle location and speed.

    And the list goes on. Mercedes Benz made its initial appearance at CES to show off an app that allows drivers to plug iPhones into vehicles to enable the phone’s entertainment and navigation to appear on the in-dash display. Chevrolet introduced a new head unit that will use a smartphone’s apps, such as Pandora, to access cloud-based content and navigation. Ford added Roximity to provide contextual real-time discounts linked to the vehicle’s location and user’s preferences. TCS has its foot in this market, too. It will be supplying hybrid navigation solutions for the QNX in-vehicle car platforms.

    images
    Mercedes-Benz takes center stage at CES 2012.

    After-market activity. You can tweet about your accident, make it a status update, or do both. TomTom has integrated Facebook and Twitter with its navigation app for iPhones and iPads. Information from Facebook events, places and friends will feed to create navigation routes. Destinations and arrival times can then be shared on these networks.

    Heavy-weight skinny nav. Garmin has introduced the nüvi 3500 series, its new flagship personal navigation device, an ultra-thin GPS device with a five-inch screen. Capabilities include digital HD traffic and a smartphone link that can add live services, such as traffic information, traffic camera images, weather and fuel prices.

    Good luck, Verizon. At a time when straight-up navigation is becoming a utility, Verizon is rolling out a new bundled application app package. It includes their navigation app, as well as NFL Mobile, ringback tones and Verizon Video for $12.99. I don’t know much about the NFL Mobile app, but it better be good. Given the poor marks received by Verizon Video and low interest in ringback tones, the package isn’t looking too appealing when navigation is often a freebie.

    Need maps. TomTom will be providing Samsung with map and location content to power the Wave3 smartphone. TomTom will provide map coverage for more than 200 countries, POIs, traffic, 3D maps and landmarks and “safety-related speed cameras.” Safety-related speed cameras?

    Enterprise routing trends. Enterprises using vehicle routing software for fleets of service and truck vehicles are increasing their buying of on-board computers, as well as smartphones for driver interfaces. These products are used for improved efficiencies in planning routes, and often feed analytics into a complex logistics system. Customers who used to be satisfied with just obtaining GPS positions of their fleets are now pushing for more telematics and a connected vehicle.

    Lower prices and more pressure on productivity have pushed demand for on-board computers that can deliver data about the vehicle’s actual route, and sometimes connects to the engine to provide detail on how the vehicle was driven. Other fleets, particularly service fleets, are tending toward integrating routing apps with smartphones. The phones are cheaper than onboard computers, don’t need to integrated, and still can provide turn-by-turn directions to that day’s route. The trend is toward the Android operating system.

  • CES Turning into Big Tech Auto Show

    Navigating your way through thousands of booths and 140,000 attendees is a challenge in itself at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. While there was a huge amount of location-based services news, the big deal was the presence of just about every automobile manufacturer. Such off-site meetings as the Consumer Telematics Show, Showstoppers and AT&T Developer’s Conference also highlighted the connected car.

    images

    LAS VEGAS — It took several years, but most major automobile manufacturers are onboard with the idea that a vehicle needs to be connected. Most automobile manufacturers came to the Consumer Electronics Show here to show off their connected devices and explain where they think the market is going.

    “The connected vehicle has arrived, though it is not a smart phone on wheels. This the year we are seeing a lot of growth — and I have been doing this a long time,” said Thilo Koslowski, Gartner vice president. “From 2008 to 2012, the majority of car manufacturers have installed connected vehicles. From 2013 to 2016, we will see really major market adoption. A mature market expects connected vehicles — and that’s right around the corner.”

    Koslowski says that automakers shouldn’t be locked into one specific market strategy. “They aren’t going to make it if they do.  Technology and business approaches evolve in parallel,” he said. “The traditional value and supply chains may not be the best way to market these systems…and you will see some consolidation.”

    The aftermarket will take over the connected marketplace if the car makers won’t adjust their strategies, Koslowski said. He said in 2004, the CRM opportunity seemed to be more important to auto makers, but now it’s somewhere in the middle of importance. “We are primarily in the product differentiation phase now,” he said. “It is an open playing field right now, but it will be a challenge for companies who think they have it all figured out.”

    Gartner’s research has found that consumers want wireless map updates, real-time weather and traffic, remote software updates and parking availability. What they don’t like are family and friend location information, creating and reading e-mail in a car, anon-demand music book, and such social networks as Twitter in the vehicle.

    TomTom Signs Deal With Samsung

    One of the bigger announcements in the location space at CES, and maybe the one with the most LBS tie in, was TomTom’s deal with Samsung. TomTom’s maps and location content will power Samsung’s Wave 3 smartphone. The deal basically allows the phone to have LBS, said Charles Cautley, TomTom managing director, automotive licensing.

    The business-to-business market has been a strong one for TomTom, which estimated that around 40 percent of its earnings came from that segment, said Cautley, who spent considerable time at General Electric in the commercial vehicle market before coming to TomTom three years ago.

    To cap off a big week, TomTom rolled out three portable navigation devices, Start, Via and Go Live. It also signed a licensing agreement with high-end automaker Fisker Automotive. Through a three-year-deal, TomTom will provide map and location data for the Fisker Karma electric sedan. “We absolutely think the electric vehicle market is going to grow,” Cautley said.

    TomTom competitor Magellan also rolled out some new PNDs, including the RoadMate 9055-LM and back-up camera. “Overall, the PND is becoming less a novelty and more a utility,” said Magellan’s Stig Pedersen, senior director of marketing strategy. “We are moving more towards safety features in the next year.”

    Auto Companies Announce Offerings At CES

    Some in the automobile industry are now saying that CES is the place where car makers are rolling out the new technology, not at the concurrent Detroit Auto Show, which is used to roll out new cars.

    Chrysler Group’s Uconnect now has a website that allows its users to get in-car updates for their in-vehicle system through a mobile phone, said Joni Christensen, Uconnect head of marketing.

    After the initial cost of Uconnect, all that a car owner needs to pay for, after a year’s free service, is the Sirius radio, Christensen said. The navigation system, like Ford’s Sync, is tied to one system — and like Cadillac’s Cue, can be switched from one screen to a view that is incorporated into a car’s speed gauge.

    OnStar will give “selected” developers access to a proprietary application program interface (API) to create mobile apps designed with OnStar’s suite of services, the company said. The first partner to use OnStar’s API will be RelayRides, a peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace.

    In other company news, OnStar and Verizon Wireless are working on a second-generation connected research vehicle. The Chevrolet Volt research will receive streaming content from the Cloud enabled by the Verizon 4G LTE network and building on OnStar’s Advanced Telematics Operating System (ATOMS).

    Audi said it is also offering a 4G LTE capability for its Audi Connect services. The company will continue to use Google Earth maps and will show a driver their destination in 3D imagery.

    Telenav launched a new product called Scout at CES that can work with Ford’s SYNC connected unit. Scout provides customized navigation, entertainment, and convenience features for connectivity between a smart phone, vehicle, or a computer.  Scout Key features turn-by-turn directions, real-time traffic, and estimated drive times to specific destinations at different hours of the day. Scout also provides personal local search based on a user’s preferences for entertainment, restaurants, and other points of interest once they arrive at a destination.

    “It’s free on iTunes right now, but we plan to launch it on other platforms,” said Sooner Heath, Telenav customer solutions manager.

    Indoor Positioning Looking to Get Bigger

    Soon all malls, shopping centers, airports, sporting venues and other businesses will feature indoor maps, which could be the boost LBS needs, particularly if big businesses come on board and advertise. At CES, CSR said it is working with Micello, Google and Nokia Location and Commerce on indoor positioning, that combines Wi-Fi and GPS.

    Some of the capabilities include being able to see what floor in the building you are walking in, pedestrian dead reckoning, and turn-by-turn walking directions, said Blake Bullock, CSR product manager.

    Fernando Villasol, Nokia Location and Commerce director of content, says the advent of indoor positioning will soon open up new market opportunities for developers.

    In other CES news:

    • Kenwood says its marketing agreements with Garmin continue to produce great aftermarket sales. The company rolled out its $1,500 DNX7180 Navigation/Multimedia Receiver, which features navigation from Garmin, including Lane Assist with Junction View. A built-in free feature is the Navteq Live Traffic for the life of the product.
    • Location Labs’ new Safely line of services include phone controls to allow parents to lock kids’ phones, a family locator, a teen phone lock during drives that is available on Sprint and T-Mobile phones, and a social monitor for Facebook.
    • Like TomTom’s discontinuation of the Tele Atlas name, Nokia has basically done away with the Navteq company name, though many in the industry still say “Navteq” when talking about the mapping side of the business.
    • There was an LBS and Safety Zone at CES that was in a terrible area in the back of North Hall. While there was a lot of foot traffic, looks like smaller and international companies were thrown in the back — not near the bigger auto players which would have generated more attention to the booths/companies. Overall, CES is more of a connected vehicle show than LBS…a change that has been happening for two years.