Where Are We? - GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones - page 164

lions to extend accurate navigation—down to the inch—indoors, where gps
signals often fail. 127 Each has patents using a variety of technologies to make
this possible. Some use cellular phone signals or Bluetooth beacons at Wi-Fi
hotspots; others use inertial methods—gyroscopes, accelerometers, and com-
passes—to measure movements from a known location, such as gps coordi-
nates at a building's entrance. 128 Apple has acquired several location
technology companies and announced a worldwide agreement with TomTom
in mid-July 2012 that suggests it will head indoors as well. 129 Google announced
in July 2012 that it had already mapped ten thousand indoor locations, includ-
ing more than 2.7 million square feet in seventeen Smithsonian museums. 130
That same month Walgreen's announced it had mapped all of its 7,907 stores
in a partnership with mapping and search startup Aisle411, a coup that cata-
pulted the small company's indoor map offerings above 9,000. 131 Not only
will shoppers know where they are in a store; sellers will know, too. Those Val-
pak coupons that shoppers are used to getting in their mailboxes will appear
instantly on their phones for consumers using the junaio app, an augmented
reality browser. The app activates the phone's camera, and geolocation cou-
pons pop up on the screen as the shopper scans his or her surroundings. 132
Augmented reality is attracting such giants as ibm, which is working on an app
that would allow shoppers to pan their cameras across an entire grocery aisle
and identify products that fit personalized, preselected criteria—and then offer
a coupon. 133 Analysts have forecasted the global indoor location market to
grow from $449 million in 2013 to $2.6 billion in 2018. 134
gps for personal use has come a long way from the early days of geocach-
ing, a type of high-tech treasure hunt where people hide small artifacts and
post their latitude and longitude for other hobbyists to track down, but in many
ways the future of location-based socializing and shopping for bargains reflects
those roots.
Commercial and Professional Users
While individual consumers using gps navigation devices or mobile apps make
up the largest share of the market, commercial users collectively spend more
on gps equipment than the military does. gps equipment sales across North
America averaged $33.5 billion annually from 2005 to 2010. 135 C onsumers
made 59 percent of those purchases and the commercial segment accounted
for 25 percent, while the military represented 16 percent. 136
Since the mid-1980s, when surveyors began pinpointing terrestrial features