Remember when Apple bought a little 3D map company called C3, and how we’ll now be getting 3D maps with iOS 6? Well, Amazon is doing the exact same thing. But why? You know why.
The companies that make mobile gadgets are fleeing Google Maps — well, except for Google. Bing’s taking Nokia’s excellent mapping software for Windows Phone to replace Bing, Apple booted Google with iOS 6, and now Amazon wants its own contestant: a little firm called UpNext, which provides mobile mapping, navigation, directions, transit routing and 3D imaging. That’s pretty much every single thing you’d want if you were going to, I don’t know, release an awesome new Kindle Fire or some sort of Kindle Phone. Maybe Amazon doesn’t have any of this stuff planned yet, but it’s handed over $US2.8 million, just in case, the Wall Street Journal reports. That’s a hell of a steal if Amazon wants to be the Next Cool Bro at the mobile mapping bar — and there’s every reason to believe it does. [WSJ]