A few hours ago we knew about the purchase by Apple of a small firm located in Silicon Valley, WiFiSlam, for about twenty million dollars. This bet announced by the North American newspaper The Wall Street Journal, could unleash a battle for the location or positioning indoors.
The small start-up has worked in its two years of experience in mobile applications for the detection of the telephone user in interior spaces, through the use of Wi-Fi signals. For this, it has significantly improved the technology used in indoor location and has expanded the range of apps related to commercial and social networks. As a fact to take into account, one of the founders of the company is Joseph Huang, an engineer who worked as an intern at Google.
Significantly, Google is making very important advances related to indoor positioning. Through its famous Google Maps application, in version 6.0 for Android, the company works on maps of interior locations.
Just a few days ago we learned about the presentation of interior maps in Spain, with the dissemination of plans of 67 locations, between shopping centers, universities, museums or airports. This tool, available in twelve other countries, such as Germany, the United States, Canada, Singapore, the United Kingdom or Japan, helps to improve positioning strategies indoors, using a technique similar to “My Location”, used for locating outdoors.
