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Webraska awarded U.S. Patents for Auto-Location Refinement & Internet-based Distributed Navigation
Saratoga, California & Paris, France -August 20,2002 -
Webraska, the worldwide provider of location-based services (LBS) and telematics applications and enabling platforms is pleased to announce that it has been awarded two new patents by the U.S. Patent Office.
The first patent covers Auto Location Refinement (ALR), one of Webraska's core technologies to increase ease-of-use of LBS applications. The patent covers the process by which a user can refine his or her approximate location provided by network-based automatic positioning technologies.
According to the FCC's E911 mandate, wireless carriers in the US must be able to automatically locate their subscribers within 100 meters, 67% of the time, and within 300 meters, 95% of the time.
"This may be sufficient for 'Find My Nearest' wireless services, but is completely inadequate the moment the subscriber asks for directions to their destination", says JF Sullivan, VP of Marketing for Webraska. "An error as small as 30m is sufficent to position the subscriber outside their field of vision in dense urban enviroments. Automatic Location Refinement fixes this issue. By making LBS applications built on the SmartZone Application Platform more user friendly, it has helped our wireless carrier customers to generate a two to three-fold increase in usage".
The invention describes a "method, system, and article of manufacture that enable user-aided refinement of position estimates obtained through the wireless network or handset". The set of street names within an area surrounding the user's estimated position is extracted from a digital map database. The size and shape of the area are parameters of the wireless location technology used. This list of street names can be presented to the user for selection or can be used as a reduced vocabulary for voice recognition or recognition of entered text. After selecting a street name, an address or intersecting street name may be used to provide further position refinement.
This technology can be used for many applications for which a more precise position is required. Other examples are location-based category searches such as Yellow Pages applications, Buddy Finder applications, or storage of the current location for possible future use by other applications.
The US patent for IbDN applies to Webraska's technology for delivering low-cost, server-based, real-time, turn-by-turn navigation and fleet management solutions on wireless PDAs, car radios and other embedded terminals. IbDN is already the subject of a patent awarded by the European Patent Office covering 18 European Countries.
About Internet-based Distributed Navigation (IbDN)
This innovative high-performance technology enables the conversion of all mobile or dash-board integrated terminals into "personal co-pilots" providing real-time turn-by-turn navigation, independent of the standard and technology used for device localization. IbDN® enables the delivery of such services via thin clients such as mobile phones and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant), as the cartographic data, real-time traffic information and point-of-interest databases are all hosted on remote servers accessible over the mobile Internet.
In contrast to traditional navigation systems, which use costly on-board computers equipped with CD-ROM drives, Webraska's innovation is based on powerful server-based software capable of calculating routes, proximity searches, maps and traffic information in milliseconds. The information is compressed and transmitted via IP across the mobile telephone network to the subscriber's handset. It therefore permits end-users to access up-to-date navigation, traffic, map and point-of-interest information, instantly, wherever they are and to share this information with their company, colleagues and friends.
IbDN®-based technology and applications such as real-time turn-by-turn navigation on PDAs or dash-board integrated terminals, vehicle tracking, and fleet management are already undergoing pre-launch commercial evaluation with around thirty partners in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, North America, South-East Asia, Japan and Australia. Partners include automotive manufacturers, vendors of on-board systems, software houses focusing on the travel and transport sectors, telecom equipment manufacturers, system integrators for corporate applications, municipalities and corporate clients.
About Webraska
Webraska provides the advanced software solutions required to develop, integrate and deploy location-based and telematic services. Webraska's carrier-grade offering includes the SmartZone™ Geospatial Platform™, the SmartZone™ LBS Application Platform, the patented and award-winning car navigation solution, IbDN® Lite, and over 30 other ready-to-deploy market-proven applications such as maps and directions, traffic alerts, yellow pages, BuddyFinder and m-Vite.
Webraska has headquarters in Silicon Valley and in France, and offices around the world. The company currently powers the LBS and telematics offering of service providers in four continents, including Shell Mobile, E-Plus, Pacific Access, Orange, Telecom Italia Mobile, and Viag Interkom, and has partnerships with leading technology providers including Borg, Ericsson, IBM, Nortel and Openwave.
Webraska has long been recognized as a leading player in the location-based services and telematics worlds, winning awards from Unstrung Magazine, TIME, Business Week, Tornado Insider and Frost & Sullivan.
For more information visit: www.webraska.com
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