Google Rivals Team Up to Provide Open Access to Mapping Data

Google rivals on Thursday unveiled a mission to make freely obtainable knowledge units for map options to be constructed into on-line choices.

Alphabet-owned Google dominates on-line mapping, promoting its companies to different corporations or platforms and utilizing location and navigation capabilities to reinforce its different choices, together with internet marketing.

Meta, Microsoft, TomTom, and Amazon Web Services have now launched what they name the Overture Maps Foundation, the purpose of which is to make complete mapping knowledge brazenly obtainable to be used by whoever may have it, the nonprofit Linux Foundation stated in a launch.

“Mapping the physical environment and every community in the world, even as they grow and change, is a massively complex challenge that no one organization can manage,” stated Linux Foundation govt director Jim Zemlin.

“Industry needs to come together to do this for the benefit of all.”

Google was notably absent from the listing of corporations teaming up in Overture, which stated its purpose is to increase membership to hurry up progress.

The coalition anticipated to launch its first mapping datasets by the center of subsequent 12 months.

“Immersive experiences, which understand and blend into your physical environment, are critical to the embodied internet of the future,” Maps at Meta engineering director Jan Erik Solem stated within the launch.

“By delivering interoperable open map data, Overture provides the foundation for an open metaverse built by creators, developers, and businesses alike.”

Map knowledge already underlies functions for search, navigation, logistics, video games, autonomous driving and extra, based on the Linux Foundation.

Overture map knowledge shall be open supply, which means builders are free to not solely use it however to construct on it, the Linux Foundation stated.