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HERE and automotive industry leaders taking next steps to drive global standard for in-vehicle data

HERE and automotive industry leaders taking next steps to drive global standard for in-vehicle data

Berlin, Germany and Auburn Hills, Michigan - HERE, a leader in mapping, navigation and location experiences, along with participants from a dozen companies from the automotive industry assembled yesterday in Auburn Hills, Michigan to continue their joint efforts to drive a global standard for how in-vehicle sensor data is transmitted to a location cloud. The aim of this effort is to accelerate the development of automated driving and to ensure that the results are available globally. Any interested party can find out more and join here.

The range of participants, which included representatives from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Ford Motor Company, General Motors Company, INRIX, Robert Bosch GmbH and TomTom, demonstrates the importance of collaboration to further the technological aspirations of the industry.

The event follows a successful initial gathering in Berlin this summer where 16 automotive, companies, system vendors and suppliers met to kick off a discussion about establishing an interface that defines how sensor data gathered by vehicles on the road can be ingested by the cloud. As cars become connected to the Internet they will generate tremendous amounts of data. The ability to share this data across all car makers globally, while protecting driver privacy, is essential to making automated driving a reality.

With a standard format for this data, modern vehicles can more easily transmit to the cloud information about road conditions in real-time to improve safety for drivers.  The data generated would be analogous regardless of vehicle manufacturer and could be pooled, processed and analyzed quickly to create a detailed live view of traffic conditions.

"Connectivity is transforming the automotive industry and soon cars will generate tremendous amounts of data that can be used to reduce the number of accidents and congestion on the roads," said Ogi Redzic, Senior Vice President of Automotive at HERE. "An accident free future becomes more likely when as many industry players as possible around the world can work together to help cars get the full picture of the road ahead."

At the Auburn Hills event participants discussed technical issues such as data content, security, anonymization, technical accuracy and efficiency. In addition participants addressed how best to hand over the specification to a neutral standards body to ensure cooperation among all industry players globally. HERE has already had initial discussions with two leading standards organizations on the swift handover of the initial proposed specification, which has been made available through a creative commons license.

"Our goal is to find a home for this specification that is open, accessible to all members and non-members and global," said Redzic.

"This data-focused initiative intended to enhance driving safety extends beyond the collection, interpretation and integration of data to the very process of collaboration that is redefining the purpose of vehicle connectivity," said Roger Lanctot, Associate Director, Strategy Analytics.    "In the brave new connected world facing the industry, car companies will for the first time begin to share data for the greater collective good."

On November 4, HERE will gather automotive companies from across Asia at an event in Tokyo to further drive industry collaboration.

To know more about the standard for how in-vehicle sensor data is transmitted to a location cloud, read our official blog, HERE 360.

Media Enquiries:
HERE Communications
https://company.here.com/newsroom/contacts/
Email: press@here.com

About HERE
HERE, a Nokia company, is a leader in navigation, mapping and location experiences. We build high-definition (HD) maps and combine them with cloud technology to enable rich, real time location experiences in a broad range of connected devices - from smartphones and tablets to wearables and vehicles. To learn more about HERE, including our work in the areas of connected and automated driving, visit http://360.here.com.

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New Map data updated for Android Windows Phone & iOS

New Map data updated for Android, Windows Phone & iOS, from HERE. Version 8.30.60.106 or Q3/2015.

HERE convenes industry forum to discuss vehicle sensor data transmission specifications

HERE convenes industry forum to discuss vehicle sensor data transmission specifications.
Participants agree common interface format is critical next step for autonomous vehicle development

Berlin, Germany - HERE, a leader in mapping, navigation and location experiences, recently brought together a diverse group of automotive companies, system vendors and suppliers to discuss the establishment of an interface format for how in-vehicle sensor data is transmitted to a location cloud. Modern vehicles collect vast sums of information on road and traffic conditions through onboard sensors, all of which can be utilized to improve the safety and experience of nearby drivers, such as real-time map updates and alerts on traffic or hazardous conditions ahead. If vehicles transmit sensor data in different formats, however, the ability for a cloud to efficiently aggregate and analyze the data at scale is lost and benefits to the driver become less realized.

During the forum held at HERE in Berlin, Germany, participants representing 16 companies agreed the industry must define a format in which vehicle sensor data is ingested by a location cloud. Additionally, participants discussed a range of technical issues, including data content, security, anonymization, and transmission accuracy and efficiency based on the ingestion interface specification recently published by HERE.

"The ability to transmit in real-time sensor data across different vehicles on the road requires deep industrywide collaboration," said Dietmar Rabel, head of product management for the automated driving program at HERE. "But when we do, the result should be fewer accidents and more efficient journeys, as well as moving the industry closer to its aspiration for cars that can fully understand their environment and drive themselves."

A recent forecast by automotive technology research firm SBD predicts that, by 2020, over 30 million vehicles will be sold annually with built-in connectivity, generating more than 163 million terabytes of data each year via their dozens of on-board cameras and sensor technologies.

"As more connected vehicles come to market, Continental looks forward to participating in the industry's effort to define how vehicle sensor data gets transmitted and processed. This is important for Continental's eHorizon project where we merge data from different car makers in a backend. The discussions at this forum were incredibly robust, key issues to address were identified - such as how to transmit accurate sensor information given that every OEM will have different sensors on board - and I believe we now have a solid foundation for our work ahead," said Ronald Hain, head of back-end development team at Continental who participated in the forum.

The creation of a common specification for in-vehicle sensor data is prerequisite to an industry standard, following a similar approach taken by HERE and its industry peers to usher in ADAS Interface Specification. In the upcoming weeks and months HERE will re-engage industry peers across the globe to establish a formal working group on sensor ingestion standardization.

To read an interview with Continental's Ronald Hain please visit this link. To learn more about HERE, along with detailed information on our recently published sensor data ingestion interface specification, visit 360.here.com.

Media Enquiries:
HERE Communications
https://company.here.com/newsroom/contacts/
Email: press@here.com

HERE for Android Beta new (Greek) (home button & transit preview)

HERE is the strongest player in the booming location business

A new, annual report from research consultancy Strategy Analytics covers the progress of maps and location-based services from all the major players in the industry.

We are delighted to discover that HERE wins a number of plaudits from the researchers.

In ‘Future Growth Opportunities for Mobile Location Services‘,  Strategy Analytics observes a series of key trends that are pushing the acceleration and value of location services:

More people than ever have access to a GPS device of some kind. This is largely driven by a growth in the low-end smartphone segment, and an improvement in the capabilities of these phones: 70 per cent of these lower-end devices now include GPS and WiFi, the report says.

Nitesh Patel, Director of Wireless Media Strategies at Strategy Analytics, told HERE 360: “Location-based services are one of the core services which underpin the digital revolution. Wherever you are in the world, you need to know how to get there, and how to connect with people and businesses nearby you. More than ever consumers are relying on location based services to get answers to those questions”.

A second factor driving growth is the mobile advertising business, already worth $40bn a year. Now advertisers are looking to location services to improve efficiency, testing the power of using people’s location to determine which ads they see, or to understand more about their lives.

The business opportunities around indoor location are also growing as venue owners and stores start to see the commercial value of being able to provide and customise maps of their locations. However, the report concedes that it’s still early days when it comes to realising the potential of this technology.

The rise of wearable devices is predicted to continue, and users will get the best out of these when they carry rich location-based services to provide contextual information.

Putting the car in your pocket

In the automotive sector, the report notes the importance to car-makers of creating their own mobile phone apps to build customer engagement.

It says that in their planned acquisition of HERE, BMW, Audi and Daimler have gained access to a platform for creating “a full door-to-door navigation experience” throughHERE Auto apps not only in the car, but on the desktop and owner’s smartphones.

Leading the pack

Assessing the relative strength of different maps and location suppliers, HERE wins out against the competition in most measurements, according to Strategy Analytics.

HERE is awarded the report’s highest rating – and current industry leadership – in map and navigation coverage, indoor location, platform reach (the number of different devices and operating systems we cover), visualisation, offline use and in-vehicle connectivity.

[VIA]

The latest and greatest from HERE in under 2 minutes

Nokia Announces HERE Maps Offers Real Time Traffic in 50 Countries

Bulgaria and Romania are the latest additions

Nokia is still assessing the bids it got last week for its HERE maps business. Until the Finnish company takes a decision and names the company that won, HERE developers have just released a new update for the maps application.

The update, while important for users in a few countries, comes with a long blog post that announces HERE maps now offers real time traffic solutions in no less than 50 countries.

The latest additions on the list of countries where real time traffic is available are Bulgaria and Romania. Furthermore, Nokia also announced that it significantly expanded HERE maps coverage in the Middle East, adding live traffic data to Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.

According to Nokia, its HERE maps application comes with innovative new features like reversible express lane coverage.

These types of express lanes, where the direction of the lane can change depending on rush hour or congestion, HERE real time traffic updates the direction of traffic flow.

Additional innovative features have been added too

But there's more, as Nokia states that Traffic safety warning have been added too, so that the application can prompt drivers to slow down in anticipation of a quickly building traffic jam ahead, even before it becomes visible.

“HERE Real-Time Traffic is the most comprehensive, global traffic service commercially available on the market today. With HERE Real-Time Traffic, Predictive Traffic, Traffic Patterns and Analytics, HERE is clearly leading the industry in advanced traffic content and services,” says Tony Belkin, Director of Traffic and Dynamic Content for HERE.

You can now download HERE for Android for free via Google Play Store. The application should be fully compatible with all devices powered by Android 4.1 and up.

For iOS users, the application is available for free through App Store. It should work smoothly on all devices running iOS 7.0 or later.

Last but not least, HERE for Windows Phone if available for free via Windows Phone Store. It should be fully compatible with all devices powered by Windows Phone 8 and up.

[VIA]

The new Jaguar XJ debuts with HERE Auto guidance

4 + new here.com enhancements

Try new features on here.com. You can customize your view even further by choosing to add either traffic or transit information on top of either the map view or satellite view. To pick your view, just click on the “map view” selector on the bottom right.
- Satellite view with traffic overlay

- Satellite view with transit overlay

- Map view with transit overlay

- Map view with traffic overlay

- Contextual menu

- One click zoom

More on 360.here.com

A new HERE maps update v. 8.30.58.116 for Android, iOS and Windows Phone.

Check your downloaded maps, folks, because the latest HERE maps update  is now available.

The following countries now have much more detailed maps, and allow for navigation within our apps, and show a much fuller road network and land usage details:
Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe.
 HERE have also considerably improved the detail shown in Cape Verde, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau and the Seychelles.

New here.com and new update for HERE Android

Since redesigning here.com in December, we’ve listened to your feedback and today we’re responding with added features that make the site even easier and more productive to use.

First on the list: making it a cinch to book a hotel. You can already get a wealth of information about a hotel that interests you, such as the phone number, nearby transit and even read reviews from other travellers directly from the HERE map. Now, with a single click on ‘See current prices and book,’ you’ll go directly to TripAdvisorwhere you can enter your travel dates and book a room. Click here to see how easy it is to book a room at one of our favourite hotels in New York, the Ace Hotel. Why not take in a Broadway show since you’re so close? Chicago the musical is playing at the Ambassador Theatre, which is only a short taxi ride from the Ace Hotel.

One of users’ biggest pain points we’ve addressed in the latest update is increasing the number of waypoints you can add to a single journey. Instead of five, you can now have up to 10 addresses per trip. To plan a journey with multiple stops, all you need to do is select your starting location, press the plus button up to eight times to input the places you need to stop off at on the way, and then enter the final destination.

So, if you need to pick up flowers for your mum at her favourite florist in West London and a niche motoring magazine for your dad that’s only stocked in Soho, on the way to their house in Hampstead, we can show you the best way, whether it be by car, public transport or on foot.  You can also drag and drop each waypoint if you change your mind about the order of errands you need to run.

You can now also save up to five routes with as many as 10 waypoints each making it super simple to save your daily commute to and from work along with any stopovers you regularly make at the kindergarten, dry-cleaners or the grocery store. Also available for driving, public transit or walking, you can access your saved journeys from either Routes or Traffic. Create your route, select ‘Store’ and enter a descriptive name for your journey and we’ll save it and let you know how many more routes you have left out of the five available.

Many of you ask us if your city is covered by traffic info. And, while we’re continuously working on extending our traffic coverage across the globe, you can check your city’s status by clicking on the ‘hamburger’ tab on the right and selecting ‘Cities with traffic info.’ This will tell you which cities have traffic information worldwide.

Lastly, it is now easier than ever to share a place. Where previously you could only share via Facebook, you can now simply select ‘Share link’ on the place data card and it will create a short, easy-to-share, ‘her.is’ link for you.

We’re busy working on other updates that we’ll reveal right here on the blog in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. In the meantime, keep the feedback coming! We’ll look into your issues and feature requests to make here.com even better.

Oh, and before we forget, today we released an update to the HERE for Android app. In addition to bug fixes, we’ve added Vietnamese as a user language and also enabled support for an expanded range of Intel devices. The updated HERE app for Android will be available on the Google Play, Galaxy Apps, and Amazon stores.

Sourse

HERE Map Creator Community make some updates to theirs systems

HERE MapCreator Community are making some updates to theirs systems! This will improve your experience with HERE Maps! This update might take a little time. Please check back soon.

Have a look at the map before and after Community updates it.

Redefining Map-Making for Thirty Years

HERE Map Creator: It is now possible to submit updates in all countries!