Janne Haverinen: Mapping the Great Indoors

Even in an age of GPS-equipped smartphones, it’s tough to pinpoint your exact location inside a building or underground. Janne Haverinen says his IndoorAtlas software, which combines a mobile device’s internal compass with his proprietary indexing of indoor magnetic fields, won’t lose track of users indoors or on the subway.

IndoorAtlas was tested 4,760 feet underground in the depths of a copper and zinc mine—and passed—but Haverinen and his investors see shopping as the software’s primary application. That’s why Haverinen paced every aisle of a supermarket in his native Finland this past June, using his smartphone to meticulously collect unique magnetic readings at each step.