
Apple acquired mind-blowing 3D mapping company C3 Technologies - technoslut
http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/29/apple-acquired-mind-blowing-3d-mapping-company-c3-technologies-looking-to-take-ios-maps-to-the-next-level/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+9To5Mac-MacAllDay+%289+to+5+Mac+-+Apple+Intelligence%29
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buro9
I currently work for Yell Labs in the UK (though quit last week to fully
commit to the startup I'm working on with 2 other great guys), and we use C3
on the maps part of the main website.

If you want to see what it looks like, try this: <http://www.yell.com/map/>

Only a few locations in the UK were commissioned... the cost is high so we
aimed at the large cities to start with. It's really good stuff so long as you
stay away from trees that are near buildings ;)

The dataset is enormous though. Going to be interesting to see that go mobile.

C3 basically took a FPS game map approach (poly data and textures) and
overlaid that with a tiled map approach. So each tile downloads the poly and
then lays the texture for that tile over the poly.

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namityadav
My question to you, sir, is how did you manage to get such a domain name for a
seemingly bootstrapped company? Kudos!

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wgx
Amusing indictment of the UK's longest-established [1] directory service that
they look "seemingly bootstrapped" at a glance.

[1] Yellow Pages started 1954 in the UK

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buro9
It's even older, it belonged to the GPO (General Post Office) before that,
which is why it is yellow... the post office was yellow before it obtained the
royal charter, renamed and rebranded.

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martinkallstrom
The company is headquartered where I live, Linköping in Sweden with 150 000
people. They were spun off from fighter plane manufacturer Saab Aerospace
which is also situated in Linköping. Saab owned 53% of the company and Apple
paid around $250 millon.

EDIT: Here is a video from Saab showing the process of acquiring map data and
it's military applications: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNemPTHOKWg>

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erikstarck
That must be why the second video is of "Oslo, Sweden". :)

Tjena, Martin, förresten. :)

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JfromSw
I also figured that :) Kul att se fler Svenskar på HN!

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dmix
My first thought after seeing the videos is how this will apply to video
games.

It seems like a relatively easy way to replicate the real world into a game
map.

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pyrtsa
Interesting. Previously, the same company has been behind the 3D view of
Nokia's map service <http://maps.nokia.com/3D/> — more info e.g. here
[http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/04/c3-technologies-behind-
noki...](http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/04/c3-technologies-behind-nokias-ovi-
maps-3d/)

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Geee
How is it different from this? WebGL 3D maps.
<http://maps3d.svc.nokia.com/webgl/>

Edit: Of course they will do it Apple way, which means excellent execution and
integration.

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efraim
It's not different at all since Nokia is using C3's techology.

[http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110419007396/en/C3-T...](http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110419007396/en/C3-Technologies-3D-Cities-
Part-Nokia-Ovi)

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yellowbkpk
I remember these guys being at Where 2.0 a few years ago. They were not hiding
their desire to be acquired very well at that point: they were almost begging
to get every Google employee present into their exhibit booth. Interesting to
see they finally got a bite from Apple.

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gacek
Reminds me of <http://hitta.se/3d> \- zoom to Stockholm.

[edit: its their work as well]

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frooxie
Yeah, I was wondering if this was the same technology that hitta.se has been
using for years.

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myspy
wow, that looks cool. But the whole world has to be 3D, wanna see the Himalaya
and rain forests and my home town in 3D :-D

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devtesla
And still no turn by turn directions :p

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georgemcbay
This is actually a fairly serious issue for all non-Android handsets, IMO.

The built-in integrated-into-almost-everything Google Nav functionality is the
killer feature that trumps all other killer features in phones for me.
Obviously YMMV and for some people this feature isn't as big a deal, but it is
a huge deal for me and it is what stops me from seriously considering anything
that isn't an Android phone these days.

For the record, I do realize there are quite a few GPS turn by turn solutions
for the iPhone, but suggesting they are a true replacement for Google's Nav
stuff is like suggesting Google Voice Search is a replacement for Siri.

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felipemnoa
I use Tom-Tom in the iPhone and it is good. The most incredible thing is that
if I make a wrong turn it recalculates new directions. I knew this existed in
classic GPS devices but never realized how useful it was until I actually used
it. Plus it does not require a signal which is actually really useful when you
travel to Canada (from the USA) where you cannot use the local telephone
service unless you are ready to pay a lot of money.

I think iPhone with Tom-Tom is fine. It costs $60 dollars but you can share it
with 4 other devices which means you can spread the cost.

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georgemcbay
You just did that thing which I tried to prevent anyone from doing with my
last paragraph.

Sorry but the GPS solutions on the iPhone just aren't the same (btw, direction
recalculation is a no brainer and of course Google Nav does that, and a whole
lot more like local data polling from other Google Nav users to determine
realtime road speeds for path redirection)

Anyway, it is the full OS integration that is key. Basically anything on the
phone that displays an address (web browser, Google Maps, apps like Yelp, etc)
displays it as a clickable link letting me instantly pull up directions and
switch into nav mode. This sort of integration is huge but sadly the sort of
thing people tend to gloss over unless they've actually experienced it, which
is why I tried to preempt that with the (also flawed) comparison between
Google Voice Search and Siri.

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falling
_> Basically anything on the phone that displays an address (web browser,
Google Maps, apps like Yelp, etc) displays it as a clickable link letting me
instantly pull up directions and switch into nav mode._

This is in iOS too. Of course you don't get turn-by-turn, just directions, but
if Apple is eventually going to add turn by turn you'll find it there.

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zobzu
had to add "mind blowing " or it wouldnt be worth it uh

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kristopolous
cliche headlines make me want to run too ... I despise them.

