Mitsubishi uses sound and WiFi to locate you indoors

There have been many attempts at locating you indoors when GPS fails, but they usually come with catches. WiFi alone isn't very accurate, for example, while a ton of beacons isn't always practical. Mitsubishi may have a good answer to those problems, however: using two techniques at once. It just developed an approach that determines your location based on the time it takes for sound to reach positioning-capable WiFi access points. It's accurate to within 3.3 feet, and it works with as few as three hotspots -- which, of course, can get you online at the same time as they get you from A to B.

As you might guess, a major car maker like Mitsubishi primarily sees this helping out in parking garages. The sound-plus-WiFi approach would help you find a free space when you're driving in, and find your car when you're ready to head home. This isn't just a theoretical exercise, either. The company expects real-world use by April 2017, so the days of getting lost in a concrete maze might soon come to an end.