Tag: geolocation tech

There will be over 1,000 Apple iBeacons installed throughout the event for a spectrum of alerts, meet-ups, and other info.

This year, the SXSW music festival, which is taking place in Austin, Texas, will use geolocation technology in order to provide its attendees with a wide range of different types of onsite features, so that the people in attendance will always know exactly what is going on, and where they want to be.

The location based tech will offer alerts, information about meet-ups, and additional ways to connect with people.

This will be accomplished through the installation of iBeacons. That geolocation technology was first used by the event, last year, but to a much more limited degree. This year, though, the organizers have significantly boosted their use of location based tech. The Gimbal-created iBeacons use Bluetooth Low Energy to be able to give people attending the festival a whole new way to make connections with other people who are closeby.

The new SXSW Go app will include an “Around Me” feature based on geolocation tech so users can interact.

That feature will make it possible for the mobile app users to be able to introduce themselves to other people who are close by, through a quick message. This will help other people who use the same application to be able to find them and meet them if that is what they want to do. This iBeacon based feature has cross-platform support, being compatible with recent Apple iPads and iPhones 4S and newer, as well as the Android based Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5 and the Nexus 5 and 6.

Users of the app will also be able to receive location based alerts and messages about who may have recently arrived at the festival and who can be found nearby. The iBeacons and the Bluetooth Low Energy technology are the same type of tech that Apple uses within its own retail stores so that it can provide customers with the latest updates, product reviews, and even upgrade eligibility for their devices.

To make this geolocation technology work, event attendees will need to download and launch the app, and ensure that their Bluetooth and proper notifications are enabled.

ABI has released a report that says that a new type of sensor fusion that is rare today will be commonplace soon.

ABI Research has now released a report that looks quite promising for companies that have been considering the use of location based marketing, as they have said that geolocation sensor fusion remains “very much a rarity on smartphones today,” but that this will be changing in the near future.

The report said that by 2019 the market for this technology will be tremendous due to usage trends.

It explained that trends toward local search, health, retail, personal asset tracking, and connected home apps will spread geolocation based tech massively by 2019. This will open up a practically limitless number of doors for location based marketing technology providers and users. Patrick Connolly, a senior analyst from ABI Research, explained that “Conditions are perfect for disruptive new entrants.”

ABI Research feels that the technology that will drive location based marketing is about to take off.

Connolly went on to explain that “All major sensor IC vendors have identified location-based sensor fusion as important, yet InvenSense is the only company to actively invest in this area. This lack of priority is driven by a short-term demand issue, as the indoor ecosystem is not evolved enough to warrant major developer interest.” The result, he said, will be that there will be a “void”, as that application starts to explode over the next couple of years.

GNSS IC vendors and startups will, says ABI Research, be able to take advantage of a considerable chance for meeting this demand. That said, it should be pointed out that unlike the market for IC, where there is a single position for which everybody must compete, it is the belief of ABI Research that smartphones will run a number of different indoor geolocation technologies for various apps and purposes.

Connolly explained that this environment is unique in its potential for competition, which is made even more complex by vendors such as Apple, that like to develop their own geolocation sensor fusion solutions as a component of an “always-on ubiquitous offering”. As a result of the disruption that this will cause, competition will develop and it will form a chance for equal measures.

Location based marketing companies will be provided with an array of choices with which they will then be able to engage consumers.