Navizon, Inc. is a provider of

location-based service A location-based service (LBS) is a general term denoting software services which use geographic data and information to provide services or information to users. LBS can be used in a variety of contexts, such as health, indoor object search, ent ...

s and products. Navizon was an early developer of technology that makes it possible to determine the geographic position of a mobile device using as reference the location of

cell phone tower A cell site, cell tower, or cellular base station is a cellular-enabled mobile device site where antennas and electronic communications equipment are placed (typically on a radio mast, tower, or other raised structure) to create a cell, or adjac ...

s and Wi-Fi-based wireless access points instead of

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

. Navizon also developed technology for locating mobile devices indoors with room and floor-level accuracy. Navizon, initially known as Mexens Technology, was founded by a team from the Internet Protocol geolocation market. Its founder and CEO,

Cyril Houri Cyril Lionel Houri (born April 1969 in Meudon, Hauts-de-Seine, France) is a New York-based entrepreneur who has founded two geolocation technology companies: InfoSplit, Inc. and Mexens Technology Inc. (now called Navizon). Houri has designed IP a ...

, was founder and CEO of Infosplit, a provider of IP address geolocation services started in 1999 that was acquired in 2004.

Global Positioning

In 2005, Mexens Technology, as Navizon, Inc. was formerly named, introduced Navizon, a

hybrid positioning system A positioning system is a system for determining the position of an object in space. One of the most well-known and commonly used positioning systems is the Global Positioning System (GPS). Positioning system technologies exist ranging from worl ...

combining GPS, Wi-Fi and cellular positioning. Mobile device users obtain their position through the Navizon app, which calculates the locations of

cell site A cell site, cell tower, or cellular base station is a cellular-enabled mobile device site where antennas and electronic communications equipment are placed (typically on a radio mast, tower, or other raised structure) to create a cell, or adjac ...

s and Wi-Fi access points by analyzing the signal strength at different locations. Navizon's database of cellular tower and Wi-Fi access point locations was built by a global community of users through

crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...

. The Navizon app also provides access to features such as Buddy Finder, which allows users to find the location of other registered users, and incentives through the Navizon Rewards System, which allows users to earn rewards for contributing data through Navizon's crowdsourcing initiative. Navizon's positioning products and services include the Navizon app, for individuals, and wireless positioning systems for corporations. In March 2009, the Navizon Wi-Fi positioning system was licensed by Yahoo Mobile and in March 2010 Microsoft selected Navizon for Wi-Fi and Cellular positioning.

Locating devices indoors

In 2011, Navizon unveiled ''Indoor Triangulation System'' (I.T.S.), a location based service for businesses that tracks Wi-Fi enabled smart phones, tablets and notebooks, and gives a view of people traffic inside a building or throughout a campus with room-and floor-level accuracy.

Patents

In 2006, Mexens Technology, Inc. received United States Patent No. 7,397,424 for its “''System and Method for Enabling Continuous Geographic Location Estimation for Wireless Computing Devices''”. In 2008, Mexens Technology, Inc. received a second patent, United States Patent No. 7,696,923 for its “System and method for determining geographic location of wireless computing devices”.(April 13, 2010)
"System and method for determining geographic location of wireless computing devices"
United States Patent number 7,696,923. Retrieved 2011-12-04.

References

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External links

Official website
Global Positioning System Geopositioning Mobile technology Location-based software