Somewhere lies a mythical city where the cars drive themselves, and the people walk around with wearable guides that know what they want and where to find it. To make this city work requires the most detailed map ever created.
Google wants that map. So do Apple and Uber. And a consortium of German luxury carmakers just bought their way into Silicon Valley’s simmering map-making race, announcing Monday they will spend $3.1 billion to acquire Nokia’s mapping division, dubbed HERE.
“They know this is going to be the brains of our cars,” said Eric Gundersen, CEO of San Francisco startup Mapbox, one of many Bay Area firms riding a wave of market interest in next-generation cartography. “Mapping is core to everything mobile and everything about being able to move around a city.”