AutoNavi, the mapping company of Alibaba, launched a coin-sized gadget called Xiaomi (which means “young secretary”), today. Its core function is launch the AutoNavi navigation app in your smartphone with one click.
The gadget is also a tracker that will trigger an alarm whenever your smartphone gets out of the border of an area, and vice versa.
A third function is it’s enable to trigger your smartphone camera. The price isn’t announced.
Alibaba bought a third of AutoNavi for $300 million about a year ago. At that time, Alibaba chief Jack Ma said, “This new alliance reflects our vision for the future of the mobile Internet.”
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“With Alibaba’s support, AutoNavi will be able to establish a massive platform of points of interest (POIs) related to the kinds of services our users seek every day,” said AutoNavi CEO Congwu Cheng.
“The alliance will also enable us to create an innovative monetization model by providing consumers with a one-stop service application that integrates merchant information with POIs, search, data mining, payment, and other e-commerce activities.”
This story originally appeared on TechNode. Copyright 2014
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