Nokia, Samsung, others form indoor navigation group
updated 03:18 pm EDT, Thu August 23, 2012
In-Location Alliance to standardize internal location service
A number of handset manufacturers and technology companies are working together to standardize location services for inside buildings. The In-Location Alliance, made up of 22 companies including Nokia, Samsung, Sony Mobile and Qualcomm, will pool resources in an attempt to improve and push the services onto the mobile phone market.
Pilot schemes based on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 will be implemented later this year and throughout 2013, with the standards to be finalized and reach a significant number of installations by the year 2017. Members of the alliance are being encouraged to work on their own pilot schemes and to share their findings with the others.
Nokia has already been working on indoor location services using Bluetooth 4.0, which it has already demonstrated to others working in the alliance, and has also tested white space-based location detection at the Imperial War Museum in Cambridge, UK. Google is working on a competing indoor positioning system that uses a combination of GPS, cell towers and public Wi-Fi. [via Nokia Conversations]
