Tag: location services

Apple Buys Yet Another Navigation Company

It appears that Apple has made yet another acquisition in the location services area, snapping up a small GPS startup called Coherent Navigation. The purchase, first reported early Sunday, has been confirmed by Apple.

“Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” the company said in an email to the New York Times.

Coherent has worked on some pretty high-profile project. Here’s what the company said about itself (BGR grabbed this description before the site went down):

Coherent Navigation develops services and solutions with our team of world-class engineers, harnessing our combined experience from precision navigation, differential GPS, hardware and software radio design, radio navigation, ionospheric physics, target tracking and sensor fusion, autonomous navigation and robotics, satellite mission operations and hardware development, and real-time embedded software development. We multiply our strength through long-lasting partnerships with industry leaders such as Boeing and Iridium, strong friendships with academic leaders at top-tier universities, and multi-branch relationships with many U.S. Department of Defense agencies and Fortune 500 companies.

A handful of Coherent’s employees had already begun working for Apple, and it’s unclear how much this acquisition is about talent and how much is about tech. Coherent’s CEO Paul Lego now says that he has worked on the Apple Maps team since January.

This buy is another in a long string of similar purchases for Apple. The list of location services companies Apple has acquired includes Locationary, Embark, Hop Stop, WifiSLAM, and BroadMap.

Image via Apple

May 18, 2015
All New Foursquare Arrives With New Look, Better Recommendations

Foursquare has been teasing the “All New 4sq” for over a week, and today iOS and Android users can grab the upgrade. Apparently, Blackberry users will have to wait just a bit longer.

Everything is prettier, including a snazzy new Explore. To help you better share your adventures with your friends, we increased the number of check-ins they can see.

That’s the message that greets you when you open Foursquare after downloading today’s update. Foursquare does indeed look different from the last time you saw it, and I must say that they are right – it is prettier. But the beauty of the app is not really what the folks at Foursquare are focused on. Out of the gate you can tell that it’s all about Explore, Explore, Explore. What was once a mildly useful feature on the app is now front and center, and it contains a trove of information on you past check-ins, your friends’ check-ins, tips, specials, and more.

It’s clear that Foursquare wants to be your go-to place for not just checking-in, but discovering where to go and what to do.

First, you’ll notice that the “Friends” tab has been turned into a legitimate “news feed” of sorts. It has an all new look and feel, and includes much more information and options to interact with your friends’ check-ins than before.

All of the information now contained in the one feed was accessible before, but some of it took a little bit of digging. Now, the feed includes check-ins, tips, comments, as well as a new heart icon that allows users to “like” (or “love,” I guess) their friends’ check-ins. Photos associated with check-ins are now much larger and more prominent on the page, and the feed also shows additional information like who your friends just became friends with.

The Explore tab has been completely retooled to include all of that past data that Foursquare has mined from the millions of check-ins available to them. Scrolling from the top, Explore notifies you of nearby specials, followed by other interesting suggestions for places to go like “It’s been more than a year since you’ve been here,” and “some of your friends have been here.”

Of course, every recommendation comes complete with a list of your friends who have checked-in there as well as tips from them and the foursquare community at large. Everything is still based on location – I had to scroll pretty far for the new Explore to recommend a place outside of 2.5 miles away.

The Explore tab now sports a “Top Picks” button that allows you to browse popular venues in your current area. You can target your search by choosing a specific category like “Food,” “Nightlife,” “Shopping,” or “Sights.” Again, these suggestion rely heavily on you and your friends’ past check-in data. It will be interesting to see how well the new Explore tab directs you when you’re in an unfamiliar city.

The “Me” tab has also went through a redesign, but it still sports your basic info regarding friends, stats, photos, tips, badges, mayorships, and lists. One new addition to the mobile app is accessibility to your entire check-in history, which was previously only available on the web.

Foursquare says that we can expect more additions to the app in the near future:

This isn’t just a fresh coat of paint, it’s a whole new app. And, as such, it’s just the beginning. We’ve got lots more coming in the weeks ahead, and expect even more this summer. Our little team has been working hard to build an app that helps people make the most of where they are, and we’re so excited that you can finally play with it.

The All New Foursquare app looks great, and if the new Explore feature ends up truly providing better recommendations, then Foursquare may have just taken a serious step forward in terms of market dominance. There are plenty of location recommendation apps out there (most notably Yelp), but Foursquare holds a unique advantage – recommendations based on their giant database of you and your friends’ check-in information and tips. Foursquare has long wanted to move “beyond the check-in,” and this update puts them firmly on that path.

June 7, 2012
U.S. Army Warns Soldiers About Geotagging

Location tagging poses plenty of problems for civilians. Let’s say you told your boss that you were sick, but instead had plans to catch a Yankees game. In that case, you probably don’t want your next post popping up on Facebook “from Yankee Stadium.” While unwanted geotagging through services like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and more is definitely an annoyance to many of us, it could be a matter of life or death to someone in the military.

That’s why the U.S. Army is warning soldiers about the dangers of geotagging.

The threat is pretty obvious. Not only could voluntarily sharing a location compromise a mission, but so much that’s done on a smartphone or tablet these days is geotagged, soliders could be sharing their locations without even knowing it.

“A deployed service member’s situational awareness includes the world of social media. If a Soldier uploads a photo taken on his or her smartphone to Facebook, they could broadcast the exact location of their unit,” said Steve Warren, deputy G2 for the Maneuver Center of Excellence.

“Today, in pretty much every single smartphone, there is built-in GPS,” Warren said. “For every picture you take with that phone, it will automatically embed the latitude and longitude within the photograph.”

In a post, the official site of the U.S. Army says that this has already happened. Back in 2007, as a new fleet of helicopters arrived at a base in Iraq, solider snapped some photos and out them online. Apparently, from those photos, enemies were able to single out the location and deliver a mortar strike that took out four AH-64 Apaches.

The Army is particularly concerned with Facebook – especially the new Timeline, which we all know, brings up all of your past Facebook information for the world to see. Users have to go back and manage their Timelines to make them ready for primetime.

“Some of those individuals have hundreds of ‘friends’ they may never have actually met in person, he explained. “By looking at someone’s map tab on Facebook, you can see everywhere they’ve tagged a location. You can see the restaurants they frequent, the gym they go to everyday, even the street they live on if they’re tagging photos of their home. Honestly, it’s pretty scary how much an acquaintance that becomes a Facebook ‘friend’ can find out about your routines and habits if you’re always tagging location to your posts,” said Staff Sgt. Dale Sweetname of the Online and Social Media Division.

The U.S. Army has some pretty in-depth social media guidelines, and they address what soldiers should do in terms of the geotagging issue. First off, they say that soldiers should never tag photos posted to Flickr or Picasa with locations, and they should refrain from using location-based social networking when deployed or during training. When engaged in operations, soldiers should just turn off the GPS function on their phones.

Army Social Media Handbook 2011

View more documents from U.S. Army Reserve

March 9, 2012
How To Delete Your Gowalla Account

We recently told you about Facebook acquiring the location-based provider Gowalla.

Citing “a source close to Gowalla”, CNN Money learned that the company had been purchased Facebook for an undisclosed sum.

With that in mind, if you don’t want Facebook to have to opportunity of getting your personal data… you might want to delete your Gowalla account. Here’s how to do it:

Log into your Gowalla account. In the top right corner you’ll see your avatar, accompanied by the word “You“. Click on the down arrow, and then on “Settings“.

Once the “Settings” screen has loaded you’ll find the “Delete Account” link in the lower left corner.

Upon clicking the link, you’ll be taken to a screen asking you to enter your password twice, you can then click the “Delete Account” button.

You’re done. If you won’t want Facebook gaining access to your Gowalla check-in information, you might want to delete your account, just a friendly heads up.

Are you planning on deleting your Gowalla account? Tell us in the comment section below.

December 2, 2011
Gowalla Acquired By Facebook

Facebook has acquired location-based provider Gowalla, according to a report.

Citing “a source close to Gowalla”, CNN Money says Facebook has purchased the company for an undislosed amount.

The Gowalla team, including founder Josh Williams, will move from their Austin, Texas headquarters to Facebook’s in Palo Alto, California. It’s rumored the team will be working on Facebook’s timeline feature, which is still being rolled out to Facebook members.

“It’s a perfect match,” said the unnamed source to CNN Money. “As far as the big picture, Gowalla’s vision is about people telling stories, and Facebook’s vision for Timeline is about stories about important moments in life.”

It’s not clear at this time if the Gowalla service will remain active. Facebook is kind of known for acquiring startups just for the engineers and developers behind them. (Beluga, anyone?)

If you’re looking to delete your Gowalla account, here is a step-by-step guide on how to do it.

What do you think of this news? Tell us in the comment area below.

December 2, 2011