Nokia, Samsung, others announce In-Location Alliance

PanARMENIAN.Net - 22 companies have announced an In-Location Alliance that is designed to improve and drive market adoption of location-based indoor positioning services and technologies, The Verge reports.

Founding members, including Sony Mobile, Samsung, Nokia, and Qualcomm, will create pilot solutions this year based on Bluetooth 4.0 low-energy technology and Wi-Fi standards to enhance the accuracy and power consumption of indoor mobile products.

Following the pilots, implementations are expected to be more widely available in final form throughout 2013 on mobile handsets.

Although Google already offers some indoor positioning services in its Google Maps 6.0 application, the new alliance is designed to accelerate the adoption of such services across a number of mobile apps.

Broadcom, a founding member of the alliance, recently introduced a new chip that promises improved indoor positioning support 802.11ac (5G Wi-Fi) and low-power Bluetooth.

Coupled with interest from researchers and other vendors exploring potential indoor positioning improvements - the alliance will hopefully provide an industry standard for a set of technologies to improve indoor location-based services, The Verge says.