cross pond high tech
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light views on high tech in both Europe and US
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Is Apple Plotting A Route To A Waze Acquisition? Rumours On The Road Point To Yes

Is Apple Plotting A Route To A Waze Acquisition? Rumours On The Road Point To Yes | cross pond high tech | Scoop.it
There can be no doubt that one of the hottest startups of the last couple of years has been social sat-nav smartphone app Waze. Not surprising in an era when – largely due to Apple initially dumping Google Maps in iOS 6 – everyone woke up, as if from some slumber, about the importance of decent mobile maps. Something many had taken for granted was thrown into sharp relief, especially when it became clear that even the mighty Apple was capable of royally screwing up its own maps product. So it comes as almost no surprise to us that there are rumours flying around that Apple is sniffing around Waze with a view to a possible acquisition. After all, Waze is already a data partner for Apple’s Maps app and wasthe only app to gain meaningful marketshare after the Apple Maps fail. We have reached out to both. An apple spokesperson said: “We don’t comment on rumors or speculation.” We got a “we never comment on rumors” from Waze. [UPDATE: Another source confirms that negotiations are advanced, but Waze wants $750M and Apple is willing to do $400M plus $100m in incentives. Waze had less than $1M in revenues last year (primarily from ads). Negotiations may take awhile.]
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:

Paving the way vs. the road ahead :-)

Philippe J DEWOST's comment, January 4, 2013 1:30 PM
Course change : seems that acquisition of Waze is not this certain...http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-not-buying-mapping-startup-waze-2013-1
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Think GPS is cool? IPS will blow your mind

Think GPS is cool? IPS will blow your mind | cross pond high tech | Scoop.it
For all of their awesome applications — from portable navigation devices, to self-driving cars, to cruise missile targeting — the American Global Positioning System and its Russian cohort GLONASS have two fundamental flaws: They don’t work indoors, and they only really operate in two dimensions.

Now, these limitations are fair enough; we’re talking about an extremely weak signal that has traveled 20,200km (12,600mi), after all. Passing through concrete and other solid obstacles is hard enough for a strong, short-range cellular signal — you can’t seriously expect a 50-watt signal traveling 12,000 miles to do the same. Detecting a GPS signal on Earth is comparable to detecting the light from a 25-watt bulb from 10,000 miles.

The situation is a little more complex when it comes to detecting a change in altitude; GPS and GLONASS can measure altitude, but generally the data is inaccurate and too low-resolution (on the order of 10-25 meters) for everyday use. Even with these limitations, though, space-based satellite navigation systems have changed almost every aspect of society, from hardware hacking to farming to cartography to finding a girlfriend.

What if we had a navigation system that worked indoors, though? What if we had an Indoor Positioning System (IPS)? Believe it or not, we’re very nearly already there.
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