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Audi, BMW and Daimler are poised to buy Nokia's Here mapping
What little hope Uber had of buying Nokia's Here mapping service just went out the window. A Wall Street Journal source claims that Audi, BMW and Daimler have tentatively agreed to buy Here for the equivalent of $2.7 billion. A final agreement could be ready within the "next few days," the tipster says. The German automakers won't hoard the navigation technology all to themselves, though. Instead, they'll reportedly give other vehicle brands a chance to claim their own stake and democratize the platform. While Here already has a presence in about 80 percent of the industry, this would make it a true mainstay for in-car mapping -- companies wouldn't have much incentive to license map data from the likes of Google or TomTom.
NYT: Uber loses bid for Nokia Here's maps to German automakers
It looks like Uber has been shut out of the purchase of Nokia's mapping service Here by BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz. According to the New York Times, Uber is out of the running to purchase the mapping division which it had been rumored to have bid $3 billion. Uber isn't the only company that's been sidelined by the three german automakers. According to the NYT's sources, Chinese companies Baidu and Tencent were also initially interested in the mapping technology, but have since lost interest. The automakers have long used Nokia's mapping technology in their vehicles' onboard navigation systems. Uber on the other hand, would be able to own the technology to help it better serve its passengers. While Uber may be out for now, if negotiations with the three automakers break down, the car-sharing company could be back in the running.
NYT: Uber bids $3 billion for Nokia's Here maps
Uber wants to buy another mapping technology: Nokia's Here, and it's bid $3 billion for it according to The New York Times. Who else wants in on the action? Apparently a handful of German car manufacturers including Audi, BMW and Mercedes Benz, and Chinese search engine Baidu's lending some cash to the move as well. While Google Maps is probably the most popular service here in the States, that isn't exactly the case abroad. NYT says that globally the Finnish electronics company's navigation system commands an 80 percent market share for in-car GPS.
Yahoo Maps adds indoor navigation powered by Nokia Here
Google Maps has offered indoor floor plans for quite some time, and now Yahoo is doing the same. Thanks to Nokia Here, Yahoo Maps now packs building layouts, directories and contact info for places like shopping malls, train stations and airports. This means you'll be able to locate restrooms and ATMs across multiple levels of football stadiums and other places in advance. The Finnish company introduced venue mapping back in 2012, and has since amassed info on over 75,000 venues. The Here integration should come as no surprise, though, as Yahoo and Nokia have been collaborating on cartography since 2010.
Nokia reveals Here Auto connected car navigation system
Nokia's no newbie to navigation, but its latest product raises its involvement to the next level. The Here Auto connected car platform is comprised of an application that can be embedded to a vehicle's navigation system, a mobile app companion and a cloud service. Any in-car navigator with the Here Auto software can offer voice-guided navigation with or without a data connection, along with 2D, 3D and street-level satellite maps. You'll need internet access to tap into the cloud service for real-time data, including traffic and weather updates, but previously downloaded maps work just fine even when you're offline. The Auto Companion mobile app complements the software and the cloud service, giving you a way to pre-plan trips or find your car through a phone. Currently, it only works on Windows Phone devices, but Espoo's developing ones for iOS and Android. Nokia has partnered with Continental (the same parts supplier working with Google and IBM) to find carmakers willing to integrate Here Auto into their navigation systems. It might take a while before we see the system hit the market, but it'll be demonstrated at the International Motor Show in Germany on September 10th.
Nokia Here research brings map data to life (video)
Nokia Here collection vehicles aren't the only way the Finnish giant is gathering data about our highways and city streets. The company's researchers are also using anonymous smartphone, PND and even CAN bus data to further our understanding of traffic flow and driver behavior in different conditions. Beyond improving maps and navigation, the goal is to make our roads better and cars smarter. We recently spoke with Nokia's Jane Macfarlane, Head of Research for Here, who shared how her team is bringing map data to life with the collaboration of opt-in smartphone users and fleet vehicle operators. Take a look at our gallery below and watch the video after the break.
Nokia Here collection vehicle v2.0 ride-along (video)
What do the Lumia 920, Surface Pro, Velodyne LIDAR, NovAtel GPS and Jetta TDI wagon all have in common? They're all essential parts of the next generation Nokia Here collection vehicle. When Here was announced last fall, we checked out v1.0 of the car which featured an elaborate but clunky set of sensors and cameras. That's also when Nokia announced it was acquiring Earthmine, a Berkeley-based 3D-mapping company. Nine months later, we're seeing the results of this collaboration with v2.0 of the collection vehicle. It's a simpler and more advanced setup which provides much improved image quality. Nokia recently invited us to take ride in a next generation Here car -- check out the gallery below then hit the break for our video and breakdown of the technology.
Nokia announces new location-based AR features for Here Maps
At its Nokia Lumia 1020 launch event, Nokia's just announced a new version of its Here Maps app that's bringing more features to Livesight location-based augmented reality. On top of letting you pan around on the view finder and see info for shops and other landmarks as before, you'll also be able to tap the "virtual signs" in the view and see more details and similar location categories. As before, the app will work without a data connection, "much to the regret of our AT&T partners," as CEO Stephen Elop put it. There's no firm date for the update as of yet, But Nokia said it'll hit all its Lumia devices when it does, as with all the recently announced Here updates. Check out all the news from today's Nokia event at our hub!
Nokia to update Here Drive and Transit apps, release Drive+ for all WP8 handsets
Nokia's Here Drive+ global sat-nav app for Windows Phone 8, currently exclusive to certain Lumia handsets, will be available to all devices running Redmond's mobile OS when it gets updated "by the end of this week." In addition to wider availability, the app refresh will see the integration of local traffic information and bring a "more intuitive user interface." Also, the new My Commute feature will make its debut, which monitors traffic along your common route and gives you an estimated travel time so you can plan accordingly. It'll also let you know if things change while you're on the road and offer up different routes if it spots a jam up ahead. An identical update will be applied to Here Drive, the non-exclusive version of Drive+ that's tied to one country (read: local navigation license). In tandem with the Drive apps, Nokia's Here Transit app for planning journeys on public transport will be updated with a redesigned user interface. Drive+ global navigation doesn't come free, however, even for those packing a Lumia 720, 520 or 521 variant (those handsets only have the standard Drive app pre-installed). A global license which turns Drive into Drive+ costs 15.49 euro (nearly $20) in some countries, such as the US, Canada and the UK, and 34.99 euro (almost $45) elsewhere; Here Transit will also come at a price of 1.99 euro (around $2.50) in these regions. There's table after the break which neatly lays out what costs what where, and you can hit up the PR if you feel you haven't done enough reading already.
Nokia's Here Maps service comes to the Asha 501, beta release available now for download
The touchscreen Asha 501 Nokia unveiled back in May will now work with Here Maps, the company announced on its blog today. The navigation service is already available on Windows Phone 8, Firefox OS, Android and iOS, and its arrival on the Asha platform will boost that operating system's more modest selection of apps. Available now as a beta release, Here Maps for the Asha 501 offers turn-by-turn navigation and real-time traffic information. It's designed specifically for low-end smartphones without GPS on board, and Nokia's post notes that the current version "is a starting point and we will improve the experience over time." Upcoming changes will likely include improved satellite images, which the company says will soon be updated to a higher quality. Asha 501 users in select countries can nab the Here Maps beta via the source link below.
Mobile Miscellany: week of May 27th, 2013
If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week, a new addition to the LG L-Series surfaced in Russia, a Lumia 920 was sighted that'd make Oscar the Grouch flip, and TalkTalk added three new devices from Huawei to its roster. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that's happening in the mobile world for this week of May 27th, 2013.
Daily Update for November 20, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Nokia Here arrives for iOS, brings Navteq-powered offline maps and voice guidance
If you've been keeping up with the news of Nokia's cross-platform mapping service, then you'll know it's designed to offer access to all of that Finnish cartographic expertise even if you're holding something other than a Windows Phone or Symbian device. To that end, the iPhone and iPad version of Nokia Here has finally landed at the App Store, promising to make you "feel like a local anywhere you go," through traffic and public transport overlays, voice-guided in-car and on-foot navigation and community-based updates. It also integrates with Nokia's other new service, Collections, which lets you save your favorite places to a personal account. Crucially, the app allows you to download one geographical area of your choice as an offline map -- although a 10MB cap means that the more square miles you try to grab, the less detail you'll see.
Nokia Here collection vehicle hands-on (video)
After our interview with Peter Skillman last week we were given a brief tour of the Nokia Here collection vehicle, a bright blue Volkswagen Jetta Wagon specially outfitted with a smorgasbord of sensors. The main attraction is a retractable roof-mounted mast that collapses behind an aerodynamic fairing for stowage. From top to bottom, this mast features a military-grade GPS antenna, a 360-degree panorama camera in a white pod (which captures the spherical views you'll see in Nokia Here), a Velodyne LIDAR unit in a spinning silver cylinder (for 3D mapping), high-resolution signage cameras in a black box (for forwards and backward automatic feature extraction) and finally a wheel encoder to measure distance / velocity. Sadly the car was locked so we were unable to check out what's inside or go for a ride, but we're hoping to remedy this at some point in the future. Until then check out the gallery below and hit the break for our hands-on video.%Gallery-170826%
The Engadget Interview: Design Head Peter Skillman on Nokia Here
We just had the opportunity to sit down with Design Head Peter Skillman here in San Francisco and get the lowdown on all things Nokia Here. A lot has changed since we interviewed him at Nokia World last year, including the launch of Windows Phone 8 and new Lumia devices. We talked about what Nokia Here brings to the table including LiveSight (a whole suite of applications including Drive, Walk and Public Transportation), the here.com full 3D WebGL experience and the Earthmine acquisition. Still, it's the cross-platform aspects of Nokia Here -- Android, iOS and Firefox OS support -- that intrigued us the most, so we asked how this affects the company's Windows Phone strategy (if at all). Join us for the full interview above.
Nokia announces new location cloud service for iOS, Android and others: It's Here (update)
Nokia's revealed the next stage in its cartographic future and it involves a new cloud-based service. Titled "Here," it'll tap into Nokia's map expertise and better still, work across multiple devices and operating systems -- CEO Stephen Elop, attending the event in San Francisco, also referenced recent purchase of Earthmine, a 3D mapping company that will help the company offer StreetView-style digital vistas. The new web-based map (that's live now) will work on any PC running Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome and Macs using Safari, Firefox or Chrome. On mobile, it'll run on iOS 4+ and Android 2.2's (or above) internet browser. According to AllThingsD, a free iOS app has already been submitted to iTunes, pending Apple's approval in the 'next couple of weeks'. Additionally, Nokia will have a Here SDK for Android and a web version of Here maps for Firefox OS ready by early next year. Behind the glossy HTML5 exterior, Nokia reckons its "capture, compute, experience" system, and its cloud-based processing will offer a more potent offline experience. Nokia's not stopping there, however. The Finnish phone-maker has apparently seen 75 times more use of its mapping data compared to last year, and it's looking to tap into user-submitted data. A new Map Creator tool will let people assign more specific information and detail to Nokia's original maps and satellite photos. The phone-maker's already launched its own site for the new location service, Here.net, and aims to fold in users' submissions into its own official map offering. Collections will let you store and share your favorite locations, while Explore (replete with its own map button) will let you know what's available in the immediate vicinity. The maps will also contain all of the previous Nokia functionality, including live traffic information and transit directions. Here appears to encompass most of Nokia's previous mapping services and apps -- take a look for yourself at the source below. Update: We've got a few more tidbits about Here to share with you. It turns out, the iOS app will provide offline maps, voice guided walking directions and public transportation directions at launch. Additionally, Nokia revealed the name for the technology powering its City Lens app. Called LiveSight, it's a 3D map technology that Nokia claims "provides the most precise and intuitive augmented reality experience" that we presume will find its way into other applications. PR with full details of all the cartographical goodness await after the break.
