Tern AI’s low-cost GPS alternative actually works

We’ve all experienced that moment of frustration when the GPS glitches and you miss an exit on the highway. The team at Tern AI, which is building a low-cost GPS alternative, says that’s because the current technology is limited by its reliance on satellite positioning. Tern AI says it has figured out how to locate the position of a vehicle using only map information and a vehicle’s existing sensor data. The company’s pitch: It’s a cheap system that doesn’t require any additional expensive sensors. At SXSW, the Austin-based startup demonstrated exclusively for TechCrunch that it could “derive a position from nothing.” “No triangulation, no satellites, no WiFi, nothing. We just figure out where we are as we drive,” Brett Harrison, co-founder and president, told TechCrunch while Cyrus Behroozi, senior software developer at Tern, loaded up the demo on his iPhone. “That’s really game changing because as we move away from triangulation-based, which limits technology, now we have the abil ... Read full article.