NAVTEQ, a provider of digital map, traffic and location data for in-vehicle, portable, wireless and enterprise solutions, has announced that Mobilizy is the Grand Prize Winner of the Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) edition of the 2010 NAVTEQ (
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Austrian-based
Mobilizy Gmbh won with its mobile LBS application, Wikitude Drive, which is a turn-by-turn navigation system based on NAVTEQÂ maps that utilizes an augmented reality camera mode and text-to-speech instructions. Mobilizy was the top winner over eleven other finalists.
Mobilizy GmbH reveals a preview of its augmented reality navigation system, the first fully functional mobile AR navigation system available for the Android (
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Alert) platform. Wikitude Drive was developed by the Mobilizy Research & Development group in Salzburg, Austria, to satisfy the curiosity of the developers to see if it was feasible to combine real-time navigation with mobile augmented reality. The result of this quest is Wikitude Drive, a fully-functional, light weight navigational system which overlays point-to-point directions on a camera-view, without the need for maps.
Also selected by the judging panel include Mobitee, France, as the first runner up. Mobitee is a GPS golf assistant that allows you to find the nearest golf course and follow route guidance via NAVTEQ maps. M2Mobi, was the second runner up, provides a social information source that allows seeing where people, places and events are located around the user.
The Grand Prize Winner for EMEA as well as First and Second Runners-Up received over $2 million US worth of prizes combined from NAVTEQ and sponsors. Also, special recognition awards were presented by NAVTEQ for outstanding achievements in specific categories.
"We have seen mobile applications, and specifically, location-enabled solutions, play an increasingly important role with consumers and businesses," stated Jeff Mize, executive vice president, Global Sales, NAVTEQ.
"The quality of judges and sponsors, who are a part of this year's Global LBS Challenge, reinforces the interest in location-based solutions and we look forward to continued diversification of applications in the LBS space," added Mize.