Nokia buys Desti, improves HERE with smart maps
Nokia announced the acquisition of Desti, an intelligent mapping service which the Finish company should integrate with HERE and eventually push out to Windows Phone and upcoming Amazon smartphones.
Desti was created by the same company that built Siri and Nuance. The technology understands users’ needs as it has artificial intelligence and excellent language processing. That’s why Desti, now available only for iOS, not only gives location based suggestions but also analyzes the context around questions. Unfortunately for all Apple fans, Nokia will shut down the service in the coming months, while the app has been already pulled from the Apple store, following the acquisition.
The map intelligence will be ultimately pushed out to the HERE package, now available for some platforms. Independent Nokia shifted its focus on three businesses – network infrastructure, HERE maps and Advanced Technologies. Microsoft has signed a five year agreement with Nokia to use HERE in Windows Phone. Amazon has also signed a license agreement so HERE will be part of the future Amazon smartphones running forked Android version. In addition, Nokia added HERE in more than 10 million new cars.
Windows Phone currently integrates two independent services – HERE and Bing Maps, which Microsoft uses at the same time on the platform. For example, Bing is a source for travel recommendations for TripAdvisor, while Cortana digital assistant works with both HERE and Bing.
Source: HERE