Micello Blog: Indoor Cartography

Stay in touch with Micello by following our blog as we cover a wide range of cartography and company topics.

Micello.com has a new look!
Oct 18 2011

Last week, we updated micello.com with a fresh new look.  We've changed things up, added some new tools and of course we've added more indoor venue maps.  This new design offers a one stop shop for users and developers.  From the new homepage you see the latest news, find your favorite maps, find our blog, and contact us.  Everything you need is one click away.  

Whats new?  
 
- We've taken the guess work out of finding maps.  Now, you can simply click the Maps Everywhere tile and find all of your favorite maps.  
- We'll share some of the maps that are coming out next week. Check it out on micello.com/upcoming (its a little rusty right now, we're cleaning it up). 
 
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- You can also learn more about people at micello.  Our team page gives you an inside look at faces behind the maps.  
- Check out some amazing work done by current and former micello interns, and if you interested in joining our team, check out the job opportunities page. 
 
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You can find us on facebook, check out our map of the week and watch micello videos on youtube from our new homepage.  These features give our users a developers everything they need to become more familiar with micello and our maps.  
 
We hope you like it as much as we do, remember, new look- same great maps!
 
 

 

ICSC 2011 with BeeMedia Going on Now
Oct 18 2011

If youre at ICSC, in Toronto, ON, go to BeeMedia booth# 1012.  They're showing off a micello map of the conference that they have integrated in their application.  Check out a screenshot below.

 
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ICSC is the largest retail convention in Canada.  Featuring over 800 retailers, 2,500 attendees and 150 exhibitors, you're sure to mingle with the whos-who of retail.  
 

Micello Announces 5,000 Indoor Venue Maps
Oct 17 2011

We're excited to announce that there are now over 5,000 indoor venue maps available in our Map Network. What started with an experiment of mapping out a few locations in our neighborhood in the Bay Area (California) has grown to include thousands of locations in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and Singapore. 

Its been said before- indoor maps will be a game changer, and we believe that's true.  Location-based services are increasingly moving indoors. Hundreds of applications on various mobile application stores provide compelling value propositions for consumers. These applications allow people to do comparison shopping, find their friends in the neighborhood, or get the latest flight details at an airport. The indoors is considered the final frontier, the last uncharted mile in location-based services.  Our maps have and will continue to change the game of indoor location based services.  We're thinking outside the box, we've conquered shopping malls, released the top 100 airports in the United States, and we're growing our international presence. 
 
With so many maps to choose from we don't like to play favorites, but we do have a few.  Some of our favorites include: Reliant Stadium, Houston, Texas.  This was our first stadium map, and it holds the title of the only rodeo and NFL indoor/outdoor retractable roof, natural grass stadium.  When we think airports, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport comes to mind.  This is the busiest airport in the Unites States.  We have the largest shopping mall in the United States as well, King of Prussia Mall.  This map navigates 2,793,200 square feet of retail space.  Check out some screen shots below.
 
Reliant Stadium, Houston, TX
   
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Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport , Atlanta, GA

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King of Prussia Mall, King of Prussia, PA

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5,000 is a big number, but it feels like we're just getting started. Thanks for being a part of our journey.  Check out our places page to find more of your favorite micello maps.   
 

Indoor Positioning Hot Topic at Upcoming LocNav USA 2011 Conference
Aug 23 2011

The LocNav USA team recently published an interview with leading experts from Skyhook (Kipp Jones, Chief Architect), Ekahau (Arttu Huhtiniemi, Vice President, Product Management), Sony Ericsson (Magnus Persson, Specialist - Location Based Services Technology), OGC (Raj Singh, Director Interoperability Programs) and Sprint (Phyllis Reuther, Manager, Advanced Technology Research Lab: Mobile Analytics Group). The conference is taking place in San Jose on Oct 18-19.

The participants in the interview include: 
The first question was "Which key technologies are driving ubiquitous location and why?". 
 
We particularly like the answer from Arttu Huhtiniemi (Ekahau), who said "Firstly, smartphone platforms.  Low-cost, rich UI devices are now available everywhere. Secondly, ubiquitous WI-Fi."
 
We believe smartphones are the leading contributor and enabler for indoor location technologies. Millions of people are now walking around indoors with powerful sensors (on the phone) built in which can detect orientation and movement. Also, at micello, we've spoken to a number of companies building wifi-based indoor positioning solutions. With wifi-hotspots, its even possible to determine which floor level someone might be on. 
 
The second question was about the key technical challenges in delivering location everywhere, all of the time. 
 
Magnus Persson (Sony Ericsson) said "The key challenge is collecting the data that is needed to create high accuracy positioning solutions." 
 
We also liked Arttu Huhtiniemi's (Ekahau) answer that "there are no real technical challenges, but many challenges related to business models, applications, and availability of indoor maps."
 
Don't worry Arttu, we're going all out to build the worlds largest collection of indoor maps! We're working with a number of indoor positioning companies, providing them access to our indoor maps to help accelerate them to market. 
 
Third, why does precise positioning indoors matter so much?
 
Raj Singh (OGC) said "Precise indoor positioning matters in a host of applications, such as finding locations like shops, police, rest rooms, or (check-in) counters inside of airports, shopping malls, or public buildings. In an emergency response situation indoor navigation could provide escape routes from buildings and fastest routes for rescue personnel to a disaster area."
 
We were reminded by President Obama's State of the Union where he talks about putting indoor maps in the hands of firefighters. It would be incredible to track the movement of firefighters inside a building, and with the context of a map, help them find their way around. We strongly agree with Raj that precise indoor positioning will tremendously help a number of applications and grow the indoor location-services ecosystem. 
 
Fourth, which part of the value chain is set to profit most from ubiquitous location?  And what role will mobile carriers have?
 
We completely agree with Magnus Persson (Sony Ericsson) that "Application and end user service developers" will benefit.
 
We're working hard at micello to provide the richest set of indoor venue maps as a complement to the indoor positioning companies. 
 
Fifth, will a lack of viable business models hinder the adoption of indoor mapping and navigation? How long before we see widespread pick-up?
 
We think all the answers from the participants are good, however, the time estimate should be reduced by half. The number of inbound requests we see for companies interested in indoor maps is phenomenal, from retailers, airlines, convention centers, hospitals, conferences, hotels, casinos... we really are at the cusp of a massive hockey-stick growth in this industry! 
 
Phyllis Reuther (Sprint): "The advertising ecosystem has been slow to adopt mobile targeted advertising and it may be another five years before indoor navigation support and targeted couponing ecosystems have worked out enough bugs for the revenue distribution along the value chain to be equitable and sustainable. However, ubiquitous location awareness will be disruptive in other areas, such as market research and digital out-of-home advertising validation."
 
Magnus Persson (Sony Ericsson): "Yes, and the lack of well-defined formats to create indoor maps, which would make smaller players knowing for sure that the data will not be useless in 1 year.  My hopes are on during 2012."
 
Arttu Huhtiniemi (Ekahau): "Yes, it does. We estimate that indoor positioning starts with retail chains first."
 
Kipp Jones (Skyhook): "In 2-5 years we should see the hockey stick growth as the technology matures, costs decrease, and standards are created to scale to full market."
 

 

“Indoor Location and Mapping Will Be a Game Changer”
Aug 19 2011

Last week, Thomas Husson at Forrester released a report titled “Mobile Location Becomes Invisible”. The report talks about  how companies like eBay and Groupon are using location technologies, like maps, local data and positioning.

We’re excited to share that the report includes information about micello and our indoor maps, going as far as saying “Indoor Location and Mapping Will Be a Game Changer”. Also, Forrester reports that amongst developers, maps are by far the most popular APIs (even more than social networking or search APIs)! Location is no longer a service, like maps and navigation, but an enabler of new products and experiences.

Just a few months ago, micello released the first ever set of indoor map APIs to help catalyze new experiences. Earlier this year, Unsocial demonstrated the integration of our conference map with other services. Now more than ever  the old saying stands true- location, location, location! To read more about the Forrester report click here.

Maps During a Crisis
Aug 19 2011

In the last 12 months, a number of mapping companies have assisted in disaster relief efforts in various crises. Right after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, DigitalGlobe, a leader in providing aerial imagery, positioned their satellites to get the latest aerial views to support relief efforts. Google worked closely with GeoEye to document the devastation after the earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  Imagine if all of the relief workers were equipped with indoor maps of the areas in need of aid.  We’ve started thinking along these lines, especially after President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union, where he said “it's about a firefighter who can download the design of a burning building onto a handheld device."

Two weeks ago, we were stunned to hear of a possible gunman on campus at Virginia Tech.  As the site of the nations deadliest campus shooting in 2007,Virginia Tech is all to familiar with being unprepared for an emergency.

It just so happened, the very day before the emergency, Virginia Tech performed their emergency-preparedness exercises using mock victims, rescue teams and crowds of bystanders. The exercise centered around the idea that an explosion had taken down the campus infrastructure- resulting in loss of power, communications and of course injuries.  The purpose of the exercise is to create the sense of urgency that accompanies an actual emergency.

That real emergency happened the very next day.  Summer camp attendees reported a gunman on campus.  The university responded quickly- remembering the 2007 incident and the extreme measures that had been taken to prevent it from happening again.  Over 48,000 students and personnel received text alerts and emails, and campus was locked down for nearly six hours.  No gunman was found however and Virginia Tech was very prepared for this situation.  

Imagine if every emergency responder, student and campus personnel were able to view maps of every building on campus from their mobile device; imagine how improved that would make the emergency-preparedness of this university.

In the future as we grow our maps collection, we hope to be able to help in such emergency situations. If there is a map you think we should map out sooner, please send it our on way via comments or here.

Read more about emergency-preparedness at Virginia Tech.

LOCATION - LOCATION - LOCATION!
Aug 10 2011

Location is EVERYWHERE, and tomorrow its at the Wireless Communications Alliance, Location Based Services event, Locationpalooza!  

Get the Early Bird Special, RSVP today, don't miss your chance to network with the who's-who in the app industry.  Help celebrate WCA’s 4th anniversary at their most popular event, hosted by Nokia, Thursday, August 11.  

Moderating the event will be Nokia’s Mark Kleinmaier.  Mr. Kleinmaier is part of the Business Development, LBS team at Nokia.  He has a strong background in technology, business development and corporate strategy.

Guest speakers include:
-- Bryan Trussel, CEO & Co-Founder, Glympse- a mobile service that allows GPS-enabled mobile phone users to share their location via a Web-based map for a pre-set period of time with anyone they choose.
-- Dave Elchoness, CEO & Co-Founder, Tagwhat- a world of originally produced and curated videos, photos, and audio to enjoy against the backdrop of your real life.
-- Nick Bicanic, CEO & Co-Founder, EchoEcho- echoecho- an easy way to ask and answer the question "Where are you?" With a few simple clicks. You can find your friends anywhere in the world.
-- Bart McCormick, VP of Business Development, Poynt- a free local search application for iphone, Blackberry, and Android.
-- Richard MacKinnon, CEO, ChimpIt- a"You Are Here" notebook application providing accurate nearby search results.
-- Lawrence Coburn, CEO & Co-Founder, HYVE by DoubleDutch- an application designed to improve worker productivity and make it easier to collaborate across multiple lines of business.
-- Liz Rice, Vice President, Thrutu- an application that lets you share all kinds of information and media while you’re on a call, at the touch of a button, and without disrupting the conversation.
-- Ankit Agarwal, CEO, Micello- mapping the great indoors! A location based services application focused on indoor mapping.
-- Sunit Lohtia, CEO, GeoQpons by XYMOB-  a mobile coupon application that empowers consumers to save significant dollars at their favorite local and national retailers.

For more information on WCA LBS SIG Locationpalooza! click here.

Fringe Shows Off Indoor Maps in Latest Episode
May 11 2011

Indoor mapping makes it television debut on Fringe, the FOX hit series. In the latest episode, a bomb has gone off in a crowded theatre. The emergency teams are on site and its chaos. Luckily, Fringe’s Agent Farnsworth uses an indoor map of the theatre on her mobile phone to navigate her way through the destruction.

President Obama proposed a similar idea in his State of the Union address earlier this year. The President said "...it's about a firefighter who can download the design of a burning building on to a handheld device." Thats micello!

The idea of using indoor maps is catching on and micello is leading the way. This might have happened in Hollywood, but tens of thousands of people around the world are already exploring their world with indoor maps. Check out the Micello Indoor Maps application on iOS, Android, as well as on the web!