App based system helps shoppers navigate around malls скачать в хорошем качестве

App based system helps shoppers navigate around malls

(24 Jul 2015) LEAD-IN: A new app called IndoorAtlas is helping people find their way around large indoor spaces. GPS works well outdoors, but it's still easy to get lost in large structures like shopping malls and conference centres. The app uses variations in Earth's magnetic field caused by the metal inside buildings. STORY-LINE: While GPS works wonders outdoors, many people have experienced wandering through a huge mall unable to find a certain store, or leaving a store without the intended item because it's too hard to find. A new mobile app called IndoorAtlas uses magnetic positioning, which detects small changes in the earth's magnetic field created by the metal inside a building's walls. Once users find a store, the app also lets them know if there are any promotions going on. Wibe Wagemans, President of IndoorAtlas, predicts that in the next ten years, indoor positioning will become as integrated into daily life as GPS is today. He sees many uses for the technology from shopping to safety, with possibilities including keeping track of seniors in their homes, or even miners underground. "When you walk into a building, you have a compass chip in your mobile phone, it's already in there. And all it does is it detects the earth's magnetic field, which is then disturbed by the steel inside the building. So it gives you a different reading - that's what we need. So that reading is then matched with a pattern we have of that building, and as a result we can give you that exact location. So the more steel around you, the more accurate your position is," says Wagemans. To map the interior of a building, a user takes a photo of the floor plan and records the short distances that make up the twists and turns of an indoor space. The mapping is crowd-sourced, and it takes about an hour to "fingerprint" 25,000 square feet (2,322 square metres). The app can determine a user's location within 1-3 metres (3.28 - 9.84 feet) of accuracy, says Wagemans. "We think we have the de facto standard for indoor positioning. Magnetic is so powerful, it's really foundational, like GPS is outdoors. And we'd really like to expand that lead. So we're currently live with Baidu, with 300 million monthly active users, so overnight we became the biggest player for indoor positioning worldwide, and now is the time to expand that and then grow faster," says Wagemans. In addition to helping shoppers find a particular store, IndoorAtlas can help them to find a specific item inside the store. Indoor positioning has big implications for marketers, who hope to grab the attention of potential customers without being a nuisance, says Derek Top, Research Director with Opus Research in San Francisco. "The promise of indoor location technology is just to provide a better customer experience within stores and within venues. The reason retailers - and some big retailers are looking at this market - they see it as an opportunity to engage consumers at the precise time they're in a store. That has the ability to offer promotions, relevant content, and even help a consumer walk through a store to find the exact product they want to buy. That's unheard of at this point. That's why the top retailers are looking at this as a big opportunity for them," says Top. IndoorAtlas is headquartered in Silicon Valley and Finland and has received US$15m in investment so far. The company just signed a deal with Baidu, China's top search tool, which will integrate IndoorAtlas into its mapping and location-based products. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...