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posted by CoolHand on Thursday May 07 2015, @10:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the battle-of-the-corporate-giants dept.

In a move that could backfire badly, car manufacturers are working together to buy control of Nokia maps with the intent of blocking Google's development of software for self-driving vehicles. The auto-makers consider open sourced autonomous vehicles to be an existential threat to their existing business, and are prepared to pay Nokia more than two billion dollars to stymie the disruptive technology.

“The greatest threat to the automobile industry would be if Google developed an operating system for self-driving cars and made it available free to everyone,” said one source speaking with the WSJ.

http://jalopnik.com/bmw-audi-and-mercedes-benz-want-to-buy-nokia-s-maps-t-1702660909

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Thursday May 07 2015, @11:40PM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday May 07 2015, @11:40PM (#180099) Journal

    The life blood of Garmin, Tom Tom, Magellan, etc, etc, as well as many car In-Dash Nav systems.
    Nokia was the big dog in mapping till google started sending street-view cars all over the world.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Friday May 08 2015, @07:03AM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday May 08 2015, @07:03AM (#180223) Homepage
    Don't give Nokia any credit - they simply bought NAVTEQ. NAVTEQ was already in Garmin before Nokia even knew they needed maps ("many years" before 2007 according to http://www8.garmin.com/pressroom/corporate/111607.html ) Note that TomTom bought up Tele Atlas, which was NAVTEQ's competitor, at about the same time. However, NAVTEQ also powers Bing and Yahoo maps, it is indeed a big mover in the field.
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    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 08 2015, @09:40AM

      by kaszz (4211) on Friday May 08 2015, @09:40AM (#180252) Journal

      So Google can just partner with TomTom and be done with it? Doesn't seem like Nokia HMG is that special. On top of this Google has their own maps?
      It ought to be how mapping data can be used. Not the mapping data itself. Which probably can be recreated as necessary and is only a cost and time barrier. Not something that would hinder Google.