I think most of us know from experience that trying to find your way around a large indoor location such as a convention center or an unfamiliar mall can be very challenging. You can wander around in unfamiliar mall looking for a specific store or finally break down and ask some complete stranger where the store you need is located. Another option is a new application for Android devices called Pole Star.
Pole Star is an indoor GPS navigation company with smartphone applications that allows large venues such as shopping malls, airports, universities, and museums to deploy indoor location services within days rather than months at a lower cost. The service is supported via apps for Android devices and other smartphones. Pole Star says that unlike so many other indoor GPS navigation companies out there, it already has paying customers.
The service is currently in use in malls all across Europe and Charles de Gaulle airport. The indoor GPS applications and service allows users to get turn-by-turn directions inside the building just as they would outdoors with traditional GPS. That means in a mall that has the service available, you can get directions from where you’re standing directly to the store you’re looking for.
The service will be another alternative to Google’s own indoor Google Maps that covers 10,000 floor plans in 13 countries. The potential benefit for Pole Star is that it’s service will allow navigation for group when not everyone uses Android devices. You can learn more about Pole Star in the video below.
[via Forbes]
I just want this in the grocery stores.