Grizzly Analytics Blog

Going through my pictures and videos from MWC 2014, there are two innovative indoor location positioning technologies that I haven't written about. Both are still at an early stage, and it's not yet clear how they will compete or integrate with indoor location technology already developed by the more than 130 companies in the area . But bottom line, it's great to see new innovative approaches continue to be researched. The first is from MTI , in Tokyo, who has developed location positioning technology based on inaudible sound waves. Their beacons emit sonic waves at around 20kHz, which people cannot hear but phone microphones can pick up. Smartphones used the sound waves they "hear" to trilaterate their positions. The key point is that they can do so without using any radio technology, using only their microphones. As you can see in the video below, their system enables smartphones to track their location with high precision. This video was taken in a very cro...

Next week, on June 2, Apple is having their WWDC conference, where they generally announce new developments of all types other than new iPhones. Rumors are circulating about what they're going to announce. Will it be the long-rumored iWatch? An updated iTV?  Apple's WWDC schedule now gives an interesting tidbit, in the description of a special event on Wednesday June 4 at 4:30pm: "Maps, Location, and iBeacon Get Together:  Your phone always knows where it is. Using information about a device's location can help personalize your app and make it more engaging and memorable." This gives some credence to a prediction Grizzly Analytics made a few weeks ago , that Apple is going to announce indoor location technology that enables iDevices to track their locations indoors, anywhere, in any building. SLAM technology can, in principle, enable the first iDevices that move around a building to learn about that building, so that all future iDevices to enter the buildi...

Wireless Lighting. Smart lighting. These are phrases that are starting to reach market, at least among early adopters. To some it sounds like the obvious next thing. To others it sounds like techies making simple things complicated.  It’s certainly a new and growing trend, with several start-up companies and projects in the area, and some major electronics companies joining the fray. “Wireless lighting” refers to systems in which individual bulbs can be controlled wirelessly. “Smart lighting” refers to systems in which individual bulbs can be controlled intelligently by a computerized control unit. In many systems the two are combined, with a computer controlling the light bulbs intelligently and wirelessly, and the terms are often used interchangeably. Is smart wireless lighting the wave of the future, or a silly use of technology for no good purpose? Looking at some of the start-ups in the area gives credence to the cynics. One project , for example, promotes the abi...

The acquisition of an early stage Israeli start-up company, KitLocate, by Russian Internet giant Yandex ( YNDX ), was treated as yet another small M&A in the press. Many articles reported the acquisition, summarized KitLocate 's technology for reducing the power consumption of GPS-based mobile applications, mentioned that Yandex is maintaining the KitLocate office as an Israeli R&D center, and then moved to the next topic. Yet another acquisition. But the implications of this acquisition are in fact much greater. Yandex's adoption and promotion of KitLocate's technology is ushering in an era in which mobile location-based services are pervasive, meaning that instead of being turn-on-turn-off, they are always on. This has huge implications for mobile technology and related M&A.... See the full article on SeekingAlpha:  Yandex's Acquisition Of KitLocate Foreshadows An Era Of Pervasive Location Services http://seekingalpha.com/article/2117603-yandexs-acqu...

Catching up on some of the great technology I saw at the 2014 Mobile World Congress (MWC) one month ago, here's a video of Broadcom's indoor location positioning technology demo. Broadcom makes chips, and this demo shows one of their chips tracking the location of a phone as it moves around. UPDATED: The Samsung phone shown here is a Samsung Galaxy S4 that contains a Broadcom Wi-Fi chip, running special software to interact with a Broadcom chip inside the Wi-Fi access points used in the demo, which are also running special software inside. More on this below. Broadcom's location positioning, in this demo, is based on a technique called Wi-Fi trilateration. This means that the phone starts with a database of locations of Wi-Fi access points, and calculates its own location based on the distances that it computes from each nearby access point.  Broadcom's primary innovation here is that the trilateration is not done using signal strength, which tends to give...

I'm blogging now from the 2014 Mobile World Congress, MWC 2014, in Barcelona, so I'm writing quickly. If you or a colleague are at MWC, and are interested in indoor location technologies, there are two demos that you definitely want to see. (In fact, there are more than two, and I'll blog about others later. But the others will take more explanation, and I wanted to share these two now quickly.) The first is in the official MWC mobile application. In the mapping section, you can see your own location and track yourself on the map as you move around. You can also navigate to specific booths you're looking for. As I wrote earlier , the location positioning in this app is based on technology from PoleStar , even though this isn't indicated explicitly since they were a subcontractor to a subcontractor. The location positioning uses a combination of Wi-Fi fingerprinting, BLE beacons, and motion sensing.  The positioning isn't perfect, which isn't a surprise ...

Sunday evening, on the eve of the week of this year's Mobile World Congress, a press release was sent out announcing that this year's MWC would have "one of the world's biggest Wi-Fi networks," with over 1200 access points covering over 240,000 square meters. This is enough to make anyone who's attended a previous MWC conference say "whew! about time!" But deep in the press release is another, even more exciting, announcement: "GSMA is introducing new functionality in its GSMA mobile app... geo-localised routes." That's right - this year's MWC will include indoor location services, including mapping and navigation. The press release doesn't elaborate, but the indoor location technology for the MWC Wi-Fi network and mobile app is being provided by PoleStar , a start-up company based on France with offices in the USA. PoleStar is one of over 130 companies profiled and analyzed in our recently-updated report on Indoor Location...