Jan Erik Solem moved to California, but returned to Skåne earlier this year after finishing up his work there. He’s keeping quiet about his time with Apple, and after 9 years is ready to start something new. He’s keen to start spreading the word about his latest self-funded startup, Mapillary.

‘The idea is that all sorts of people to contribute pictures through crowdsourcing. That way you can build a database that also takes in bike paths, hiking trails, ski trails and all means including streets and environments in small towns where the likes of Google, Nokia or Eniro can not go’, says Jan Erik Solem, fomerly of Polar Rose, founder of Mapillary.

Mapillary is a network service that will be able to fill in the gaps in Google Street View or other similar image features linked to maps on the web. He says it’s an idea for a simpler and cheaper version of Street View he’s had for a long time.

‘Google spends enormous money to go around with their specially rigged cars with cameras on the roof and the quality of their pictures is very good. But they are only updated once every four years and there are very many places they’d never image because the cars do not come forward,’– says Jan Erik Solem to Sydsvenskan

He is convinced that additional images can be good business. For ordinary consumers, the service should be free. But there are plenty of commercial entities that may be interested in the contents of the database. An important step in the development of Mapillary is to attract app developers to use the service.

‘A major point is that people can make something more of all the collected data, perhaps an app over the top jogging tracks in Malmö, for example, says Jan Erik Solem.

Mapillary was launched in September and has spent some time in the Minc incubator office in Malmö. Jan Erik Solem and two colleagues Yubin Kuang and Johan Gyllenspetz make up the Mapillary team.

A beta version is already online, pictures have started pouring in and an app for the iPhone was finished in a week.

‘We are ready to start doing business very soon, although there is still much work to be done adjusting the service,’ says Jan Erik Solem.

Jan Eric Solem is presenting along with eleven other Swedish start-ups in Sweden Business stalls at the major Internet Fair LeWeb in Paris, taking place right now (10-12 December) where they’re discussing what’s to come in the next decade (you can watch LeWeb live session streams). It’s about getting the word out there,

‘Today, everyone knows who I am. I will admit that it open doors a little. I know how it was before Apple’ says Jan Erik Solem.

He is a mathematician from the beginning and after a number of years of leave, he’s also back part time at his old department at Lund University.

‘I will probably never completely let go of the academic’ says Jan Erik Solem.

About Mapillary

Because you can take better photos of your neighbourhood than Google can. Mapillary is crowdsourcing map photos using computer vision and smartphones. It’s a 3 step process,

1. Take photos with the Mapillary app while walking/biking/driving (–> when you’re a passenger and someone else is doing the driving part)
2. Browse photos online at mapillary.com
3. Use the API to build stuff

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Mobile Heights has moved into the former Sony Mobile office in northeast Lund, bringing the group and cluster manager and CEO, Mats Ekstrand into Lund. The new research centre Mobile and Pervasive Computing Institute MACPI (which we’ve mentioned earlier here and here) bringing a focus on cloud technology, Tech Mahindra and Sigma Connectivity have also all moved into the ‘Greenland-house’.

‘It is brighter than ever. We play the cards right, the future may be really good, says Mats Ekstrand, Head of Mobile Heights cluster organization.

Sigma Connectivity is the collaboration which has come about between former Sony Mobile head Bert Nordberg, and Dan Olofsson’s Sigma taking over of the Sony Mobile hardware development unit (details here), with more than 200 hardware consultants from within Sony, to advance the ‘internet of things’.

Former Minister Sven Otto Littorin has been working as consultant and special adviser in the growth area Mobile Solutions since last September. The mission involves coordinating national and regional efforts in research, education and innovation with the aim of strengthening Skåne and Sweden’s position in these areas (see Region Skåne news desk for details).

Sony’s facility in Lund are now-a-days completely software-oriented. The business is also no longer just about mobile phones, but the development done for them is just as important.

‘The next few years will see machines starting talk directly to each other over the internet. It opens up business opportunities. Mobile communications will be important and Swedish industry needs to embrace the technology and develop new business concepts,’ says Dan Olofsson.

The primary customer group is no longer just mobile manufacturers, but rather companies that want to build online services for other equipment.

‘The Group’s overall strategy is all about convergence, to use the same services on different devices. Sony Mobile in Lund is part of a much larger unit,’ says Site Manager for Sony Mobile, Bengt-Arne Molin.

‘Mobile technology is now used in more and more industries, such as automotive and medical technology. The trend is driven by 4G network, which is a pure data network,’ adds Bert Nordberg.

The journey started in Lund, 30 years ago, with mobile phones, but those have become a relatively small part of the pie. Mats Ekstrand remarked that the recent changes moving Skåne’s telecomms industry further towards the user side, compared to places like Stockholm’s Science city, Kista, where the focus is still on networks and larger systems. The Skåne cluster is getting positioned as a supplier of everything from hardware expertise to applications and services.

Key companies in the Skåne cluster today:

Technology companies like Polar Rose, the TAT and Scalado have in recent years been bought up in profile. Among the new starters are Crunchfish and zimpl.

image from sweden.se

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