Facebook recently acquired a 75% stake in Scape Technologies, a British start-up specializing in location systems that do not use GPS. The transaction would have cost nearly $ 40 million (about 36.5 million euros), reports TechCrunch.
Questions, hypotheses and doubts multiply as to the objective of the social network with this investment. Scape Technologies is known for having developed a tool called "visual positioning service", which offers geolocation with great accuracy using computer vision and not GPS technology.
Location of users without GPS
This technology uses the cloud and transforms the images captured into 3D mapping. Mark Zuckerberg's company could use it to improve the performance of his future augmented reality glasses. At a glance, users could locate themselves and orient themselves.
Facebook could also choose to enrich the geolocation features of its social network through this "visual positioning service". The publications would then include more precise geographic information. Users would, however, also be likely to be located by Facebook even when their smartphone's GPS is disabled, Presse-Citron notes.
Facebook nevertheless wants to be reassuring but did not comment on its acquisition. "We sometimes buy small high-tech companies," said a spokesperson. “We don't give details of our projects every time. "
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- Geolocation
- Start-up
- High-Tech
- Social media
- Gps