World’s largest social network Facebook is reportedly in the final stages of negotiation to acquire Israeli crowdsourcing GPS company Waze for $800 million to $1 billion. Calcalist reports that the companies are in the Due Diligence stage of negotiation, which is the final stage before signing the deal.
Social navigation app Waze has won the Best Overall Mobile App category at the 2013 Global Mobile Awards held at the Barcelona World Mobile Congress (WMC). The Israeli app surpassed such power players as Dropbox, Flipboard, Sky Sports’ F1 Companion, and Square.
As part of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) taking place in Barcelona next week, four Israeli companies are nominated for awards in the Global Mobile Awards competition. Navigation app Waze is nominated for Best Mobile App, Isracard’s mobile app is nominated for Best NFC/ Mobile Money Product or Service, uTest is nominated for Best Enterprise Mobile Service and Intucell (recently acquired by Cisco for $475m), is nominated for Best Mobile Infrastructure.
Technology giant Apple, who suffered heavy criticism for its Apple Maps application, is reportedly in talks to acquire Israeli social GPS company Waze. According to a report on Israeli technology blog Newsgeek, Apple offered $400 million for the acquisition, but it has not yet been confirmed by either company.
Highly respected technology blog GigaOM has listed two Israeli companies on its list of 15 most innovative mobile companies in the world. Alongside giants such as Apple and Samsung, the list contains Israeli companies Waze and IntuCell. Waze has developed a popular social GPS app while IntuCell develops self-optimizing cellular networks.
The Israeli newspaper “Yediot Aharonot” reports that Facebook executives met with executives from the social navigation app company Waze, in its Israeli offices. It is unknown what the representatives of both companies discussed, but the two are reportedly negotiating the possibility to collaborate. Waze has recently announced it passed 20 million users worldwide.
Waze, the social GPS and live traffic app, announced a new tool of real-time gas prices updated by drivers, as part of its 3.2 version. Drivers can keep each other informed about the prices at the pumps and find the cheapest gas along their route. Other new Waze features include Category Search, such as parking lots and car repair shops, and Voice Control for Android users. The new feature is currently only available in the US.
The influential technology blog VentureBeat selected Ehud Shabtai, CTO and Co-Founder of the Israeli mobile app Waze, as one of the 10 individuals who are reshaping the mobile industry for 2012. Waze’s driving navigation app provides maps and traffic data and according to VentureBeat has recently reached 15 million users worldwide.