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WSJ: Apple acquires WiFiSLAM indoor location tech startup
In a reported $20 million acquisition deal, Apple has bought the "indoor GPS" company WiFiSLAM, according to the Wall Street Journal Digits blog. The startup, founded by Stanford CS grad & former Google coding intern Joseph Huang, offered a way to let smartphones find their location indoors to an accuracy of less than 10 feet (2.5 m) using the ambient WiFi signals in the environment. This isn't Apple's first foray with WiFi localization; the original, GPS-less iPhone used Skyhook's technology to provide more granular location info than could be gleaned from cellphone towers. But it is a big step towards interior location info for Apple's apps and OS, which is competitively important; Google Maps already includes interior floorplans for thousands of buildings, and allows crowdsourced contributions of public spaces. The "SLAM" in WiFiSLAM refers to simultaneous location and mapping, a technique that autonomous robots use to build an environmental map while also keeping track of their location in space; in this case, rather than a robot, it's a phone doing the mapping. You can see Huang's own description of the tech in the (long) video below; the description of how SLAM works is at about the 30 minute mark. Investors in WiFiSLAM included Google developer advocate Don Dodge (seen here in a TechCrunch interview) and Earthlink founder Sky Dayton. The company was offering an SDK for mobile developers to incorporate indoor location into their apps, but at this point the main site and the secondary footprint.io site are both offline. It's safe to assume that the third party SDK is going to go away, and we'll see the WiFiSLAM technology appearing either in Apple's iOS apps or in the operating system itself. In one of Apple's previous high-profile mobile tech acquisitions, Siri took 18 months to go from independent product to part of iOS.
WSJ: Apple takes WiFiSlam indoor-GPS mapping startup under its wing for $20M
Watch out, Google Maps for Android, it looks like Apple's iOS Maps may soon be entering the building -- when it comes to indoor GPS tracking anyway. The Wall Street Journal's Digits blog is reporting that Apple has confirmed it purchased WiFiSlam, a startup that specializes in WiFi-assisted indoor-GPS functionality for phone apps. Interestingly, Digits notes that the company was founded by a few ex-Googlers a couple of years back and that one of its investors has included a Google employee. Further, a quick Google search confirms that any WiFiSlam-related apps that may have been on Google Play are all but dead links now. The word on the street is that Apple handed over $20 million to claim the company, although it wouldn't confirm any numbers -- or a specific reason for the purchase -- with the blog. While there's no actual telling whether this means we'll see indoor mapping on iOS maps at any point, it's hard not to imagine it now that Apple's made the purchase. We're seeking comment from Apple on our end, and will be sure to let you know what we hear back. For now, check out an old demo of WiFiSlam in action after the break.
