TomTom To Slash 500 Jobs
Dutch Mapmaker To Cut 10 Percent of Workforce...
Citing improvements to its automated mapmaking platform, TomTom (TOM2) said Wednesday it will slash 10 percent of its global workforce.
“Regrettably, this will have an intended impact on approximately 500 employees in our Maps unit, equivalent to around 10 percent of our total global headcount,” the company said in a statement.
The company said the employee cuts come as it resets its organization to further improve its mapmaking technology.
While CEO Harold Goddjin did not address the slashing of 10 percent of the company’s workforce, he said that both higher levels of automation and integration of digital sources will provide fresher and richer maps. “These better maps will improve our product offerings and allow us to address a broader market, both in the Automotive and Enterprise businesses," he said in a statement.
Goddjin said that the “full assessment of the financial implications of the reset of the Maps unit is ongoing.”
A further update will be provided during the publication of our results for the second quarter of 2022.
TomTom, which said it will offer another Maps unit update in its second quarter 2022 results, had its shares rise slightly in Amsterdam early trading. However shares have been down sharply since the start of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.
SPYR Technologies Acquires GeoTraq For $13.5 Million
SPYR Technologies [SPYR] has acquired GeoTraq from JanOne Inc. [JAN] for $13.5 million. GeoTraq develops and manufactures IoT modules for asset tracking, location-based services, and sensor modules for remote monitoring.
GeoTraq will make its initial product offerings, which are in development and testing, in the first quarter of 2023.
According to published reports, JanOne stock more than doubled in premarket trade following the announcement. In addition, the $13.5 million was paid in cash and SPYR shares.
The GeoTraq modules provide indoor and outdoor positioning capability using only LTE radio signals—no GPS or GNSS—by cellular tower triangulation. The cellular chipset provides global coverage and is certified by operators worldwide, the company said.
Contact: SPYR Technologies, ir@spyr.com, https://ir.spyr.com.
Hexagon | NovAtel and Xona Space Systems Sign MoU
Hexagon | NovAtel has signed an MoU with Xona Space Systems to collaborate on PNT development of Xona’s new Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation.
Xona, which recently launched a test satellite on SpaceX’s Transporter 5, says that LEO constellations offer a new, and better, way of assuring PNT by providing stronger signals with satellites closer to the Earth. The process includes improved positioning accuracy with rapidly changing geometry, the company said.
Because Xona’s new constellation would transmit encrypted signals on two frequencies, which offer authentication, new levels of resilience against malicious interference will be built, the company said.
“This agreement accelerates the future of alternative PNT,” said Sandy Kennedy, vice president of innovation at Hexagon’s Autonomy & Positioning division, in a statement.
Last year, San Mateo, Calif.-based Xona Space Systems raised $8 million for its proposed independent LEO satellite navigation services. The funding round, led by Seraphim Space Investment Trust [SSIT] and MaC Venture Capital.
Other Xona investors include Toyota Ventures, u-blox co-founder Daniel Ammann and Ryan Johnson, former BlackBridge CEO and operator of the Rapideye constellation. Follow-on investors also include 1517 Fund and Stellar Solutions, the company said.
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👍 UK Launches £40M Funding Competition for Autonomous Commercial Vehicles. “The ‘Commercialising Connected and Automated Mobility’ competition will provide grants to help roll out commercial use self-driving vehicles across the UK from 2025.”
🛩 What Makes The Switchblade Drone So Deadly? Once launched, the Switchblade 300 has a range of 6.2 miles and an operational window of 10 minutes. Through its color camera and GPS, a human operator uses a Ground Control Station to select and engage targets.
👌 Ericsson, BT Ink Deal To Provide Private 5G Networks in the UK. “The Swedish vendor also noted that private networks also enable new applications and IoT capabilities such as asset tracking, predictive maintenance, connected sensors, real-time data processing, automation and robotics.”
🙂 Walmart Expands Drone Delivery in Six States. “The retail giant announced May 24 it’s expanding its drone delivery program across six states: Florida, Arizona, Arkansas, Texas, Utah and Virginia. Drone hubs will be set up at 34 sites by the end of the year.”
😃 Google Maps Is About To Get Even Better Thanks to the New Street View Camera. “According to the official Google blog, a new camera shrinks the device down to something about the size of a house cat.”
🏭 Vodafone Qatar Launches New IoT Asset Tracking Solution. “The IoT Asset Tracking solution facilitates the delivery of real-time information such as asset location and environment conditions and can track multiple assets simultaneously as well as deliver alerts and reports.”
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Mapbox Adds Address Coverage for 47 Million Households and Businesses
Mapbox said its newest release of address data for Mapbox Search added coverage for 11 new countries—and improved coverage for an additional 25 countries, according to a company blog. This coverage includes 47 million households and businesses.
The blog said that the coverage “means covering about 3 billion address points.” In the past two years, Mapbox has grown support for deliver and routing from 18 countries to 64, the company said. The coverage has enabled such companies as Instacart to expand their business to Australia and Canada, the company said.
Contact: Mapbox, www.mapbox.com.
Pozyx Platform Features Indoor and Outdoor Tracking Capability
Pozyx has launched its new Pozyx Platform, based on the omlox hub and supporting multiple location technologies, for indoor and outdoor tracking. The Pozyx Platform, which supports Industry 4.0, tracks and identifies any asset to provide real-time data, the company said.
Some of the location data facilitates warehouse and inventory control, keeps track of returnable packaging and critical tools and slashes lost asset costs, the company said. The omlox hub, which is a Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) standard, offers location data from UWB, 5G, RFID, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS converge, the company said
Contact: Elly Schietse, Pozyx, 32 479 761825, marketing@pozyx.io, www.pozyx.io.
Trimble Introduces OEM GNSS Receiver for Autonomy Apps
Trimble [TRMB] has introduced the Trimble BD9250, a dual-frequency OEM GNSS receiver module that supports Trimble RTX correction services. The receiver is designed to deliver positioning for such high volume, autonomous-ready applications as agriculture, construction, robotics and logistics industries.
The receiver is equipped with Trimble’s ProPoint positioning engine. In addition,the BD9250 is compatible with Trimble RTX correction services or RTK and supports all major GNSS constellations, the company said.
Contact: Lea Ann McNabb, Trimble, (408) 481-7808, www.trimble.com.
WITRAC Asset Tracking Uses Semtech’s LoRA Devices
Semtech Corp. [SMTC] has announced that Boluda Corporación Marítima, a global maritime services provider, will use an asset tracking solution from WITRAC, which uses its LoRa devices and the LoRaWAN standard. In use in the Canary Islands, WITRAC’s Total Track & Trace Intelligent Platform transports cargo from the peninsula with more than 350 successful voyages, the company said.
WITRAC’s Total Track & Trace Intelligent Platform provides real-time visibility and control of offshore operations, the company said. The platform’s Perfect Route System is able to geolocate a fleet’s vessels, allowing alerts to be set for deviations in fuel consumption, speed, routes, or miles traveled, the company said.
Contact: Ronda Grech, Semtech, (805) 250-1263, rgrech@semtech.com, www.semtech.com.
Mojio Partners With RapidSOS Ready
Mojio has partnered with RapidSOS Ready to provide real-time delivery of telematics data and insights to 911 in the event of a vehicle crash. The Mojio and RapidSOS’ partnership will link telematics data to more than 5,200 Emergency Communications Centers nationwide.
Mojio’s Automatic Crash Notification service leverages a crash detection algorithm from Bosch that is embedded on a 4G LTE OBD-II device to identify and measure a collision event in real-time, the company said. Some features include the time and location of the crash event, the direction of travel and crash severity, and vehicle identification information, such as the vehicle’s make, model, year and color, the company said.
Contact: Ted Miller, for RapidSOS, (305) 331-8334, ted_miller@tedmillergroup.com.
SPYR Technologies Acquires GeoTraq
SPYR Technologies [SPYR] has acquired GeoTraq from JanOne Inc. [JAN] for $13.5 million. GeoTraq develops and manufactures IoT modules for asset tracking, location-based services, and sensor modules for remote monitoring. GeoTraq’s initial product offerings in the first quarter of 2023.
Contact: SPYR Technologies, ir@spyr.com, https://ir.spyr.com.
Hemisphere GNSS Rolls Out Knuckle, Swing Boom Features for Machine Control
Hemisphere GNSS has announced added support for knuckle boom and swing boom excavators as part of their GradeMetrix 3D Excavator solution. Hemisphere will make knuckle boom and swing boom options available in several of its new GradeMetrix excavator kits.
Contact: Hemisphere GNSS, (480) 348-6380, press@hgnss.com, www.hgnss.com.
People
Trimble [TRMB] has named Finlay Wood as General Manager, Off-Road Autonomy. Wood has been instrumental in creating Trimble’s autonomous technology division for the past three years.
TomTom [Tom2] has named Ugar Basak as Director of Engineering for Developer Experience. Basak joins TomTom from Booking.com where he worked initially in information security and more recently in establishing platform engineering as a function.
Zoox has named John Maddox as Senior Director of Safety Policy and Strategy. Maddox held executive positions at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Lyft, and the American Center for Mobility.
Jobs
Industry Marketing Manager. Nearmap.
Senior Product Manager, Commercial Transport. Swift Navigation.
Senior Product Manager, IoT SaaS. Swift Navigation.
