Germany’s biggest auto makers AUDI AG, BMW Group and the Daimler AG have successfully concluded the acquisition of Nokia’s digital mapping and location business HERE. The three partners each hold an equal stake in HERE. All competent antitrust authorities have now approved the transaction. There will be more details of the deal during next week. The buying price was some 2.8 billion euros, according to WSJ.

The technology of Here is based on a cloud-computing model, in which location data and services are stored on remote servers so that users have access to it regardless of which device they use. HERE captures location content such as road networks, buildings, parks and traffic patterns. It then sells or licenses that mapping content, along with navigation services and location solutions to other businesses such as Alpine, Garmin, Oracle and Amazon.com.

The technology is vital for projects like this one, but it's also useful for pedestrians, as you can see in the video below.