Google and Apple dominate the market for online maps, charging mobile app developers for access to their mapping services. The other mega-cap tech companies are joining together to help create another option.
A group formed by Meta, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, along with TomTom, is releasing data that could enable companies to build their own maps, without having to rely on Google or Apple.
The Overture Maps Foundation, which was established late last year, captured 59 million “points of interest,” such as restaurants, landmarks, streets and regional borders. The data has been cleaned and formatted so it can be used for free as the base layer for a new map application.
Meta and Microsoft collected and donated the data to Overture, according to Marc Prioleau, executive director of the OMF. Data on places is often difficult to collect and license, and building map data requires lots of time and staff to gather and clean it, he told CNBC in an interview.
“We have some companies that, if they wanted to invest to build the map data, they could,” Prioleau said. Rather than spending that kind of money, he said, companies were asking, “Can we just get collaboration around the open base map?”
Overture is aiming to establish a baseline for maps data so that companies can use it to build and operate their own maps.
For many companies, Google‘s and Apple‘s maps aren’t ideal, because they don’t provide access to the underlying data. Instead, those companies allow app makers to use their maps as a service and, in many cases, charge each time the underlying map is accessed.
For example, app makers pay per thousand Google Maps lookups through an application programming interface (API). Apple allows access to Apple Maps for free for native app developers, but web app developers need to pay.
“That works for a lot of people, but not for others,” Prioleau said.
Overture is only offering the underlying map data, leaving it up to companies to build their own software on top of it.
A map that shows where the 59 million points of interest Overture has collected are concentrated.
Overture Maps Foundation
Digital maps are important for nearly all mobile apps. Emerging technologies such as augmented reality and self-driving cars also require high-quality mapping software to work. Using Overture’s data, companies can integrate their proprietary information, such as exact pickup locations for a delivery app, to customize their offerings.
Overture isn’t the first organization to strive to create map data that can be used freely or cheaply. OpenStreetMap, founded in 2004, creates maps using crowdsourced data. Meta uses the data in its maps.
Prioleau, who worked at Meta until earlier this year, says Overture seeks to distinguish its data from OpenStreetMap’s by being more closely vetted and curated.
One big challenge is keeping the map data up to date, as businesses close and roads change. The foundation hopes its members can contribute enough real-time information to enable the regular release of accurate updates instead of a one-time data dump. Prioleau envisions using artificial intelligence technology and other automated techniques to help.
“You build maps for the rest of your life,” Prioleau said, “which is also one of the reasons why these companies said, ‘Hey, we don’t get any huge benefit from cleaning up data, right? We’re willing to share that, that’s not a strategic advantage for us.'”
A Microsoft store in New York, US, on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024.
Jeenah Moon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Microsoft has warned of “active attacks” targeting its SharePoint collaboration software, with security researchers noting that organizations worldwide stand to be affected by the breach.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Sunday in a release that the vulnerability provides unauthenticated access to systems and full access to SharePoint content, enabling bad actors to execute code over the network.
CISA said that while the scope and impact of the attack continue to be assessed, the agency warned that it “poses a risk to organizations.”
Microsoft late Sunday issued fixes for customers to apply to two versions of the SharePoint software. Another 2016 version remains vulnerable and the company said it is working to develop a patch.
Researchers at Palo Alto Networks said the hack likely reached thousands of organizations globally.
“The exploits are real, in-the-wild and pose a serious threat,” they added.
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CNBC has reached out to Microsoft for additional comment and information.
In an alert on Saturday, Microsoft said the attack applies only to on-premises SharePoint servers, not those in the cloud like Microsoft 365. SharePoint software is commonly used by global businesses and organizations to store and collaborate on documents.
The vulnerability is especially concerning because it allows hackers to impersonate users or services even after the SharePoint server is patched, according to researchers at European cybersecurity firm Eye Security, which said it first identified the flaw.
SharePoint servers often connect to other Microsoft services such as Outlook and Teams, meaning such a breach can “quickly” lead to data theft and password harvesting, Eye Security researchers said.
Separately, Alaska Airlines briefly halted its ground operations for about three hours on Sunday due to an IT outage. It lifted the ground stop at roughly 2 a.m. EST, the carrier said in a statement.
It was unclear whether the outage was related to the SharePoint attack.
Michael Intrator, Founder & CEO of CoreWeave, Inc., Nvidia-backed cloud services provider, reacts during the company’s IPO at the Nasdaq Market, in New York City, U.S., March 28, 2025.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
CoreWeave stock rose more than 7% after the renter of artificial intelligence data centers said it plans to sell $1.5 billion worth of bonds.
The company said in a release that the notes, due in 2031, will use the capital for general purposes, such as paying off debt.
In May, the company announced a $2 billion debt offering plan that sent shares soaring 19%. At the time, CNBC confirmed that the debt was five times oversubscribed. Last week, Coreweave shares rallied after the company announced a $6 billion AI data center project in Pennsylvania.
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CoreWeave, whose biggest clients include Nvidia and Microsoft, has more than tripled in share price since its March debut on the Nasdaq.
In its IPO prospectus filing, CoreWeave said that it was “one of the largest private debt financings in history and signals the confidence that debt investors have in funding our company to build and scale the next generation AI cloud.”
Some investors have raised concerns about the company’s debt and the sustainability of demand for its products. In May, CEO Michael Intrator defended CoreWeave’s spending plans and said it is meeting major client “demand signals.”
The latest crypto treasury company is set to hit the public market with an ambitious plan to build the largest public vehicle for institutional exposure to ether.
The Ether Machine will begin trading on the Nasdaq Monday through a merger with blank check company Dynamix Corporation. Andrew Keys, the co-founder and chairman of the new company, has committed about $645 million in an anchor investment. The entity is backed by crypto investors 10T Holdings, Electric Capital, Pantera Capital and more. Once the merger is complete, it will trade under the ticker ETHM.
The company is the latest in an emerging cohort of new entities vying to become the MicroStrategy of Ethereum by replicating the bitcoin proxy’s successful accumulation strategy, but around ether, the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, rather than bitcoin.
Keys’ company plans to differentiate with a focus on yield generation through “staking” rather than simply buying and holding the ether. Staking is a mechanism for generating yield by contributing to network operations around security and transaction processing.
By purchasing ether from a crypto exchange or buying shares of an ether ETF, investors would get exposure to the coin’s price, “but without access to the dividend,” Keys explained.
“Ether produces yield if it’s properly managed,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Monday. “The ETFs right now don’t generate yield because they don’t enable staking … we’re able to enable staking and we’re able to do other additional risk management on top of that.”
On Thursday, BlackRock filed with the SEC to include staking to its popular ETHA ether ETF, which just logged a record week of inflows.
The ability to stake makes ether a “more productive” asset than bitcoin, according to Keys.
The Bitcoin network “has one asset on it, bitcoin, that can be moved from peer to peer, but Ethereum can tokenize any asset,” Keys said. It’s “able to embed any type of digital asset – a bar of gold, a barrel of oil, a stock, a bond, a derivative – into digital legal agreements, and in doing so, you’re able to expedite the velocity of money. You can have employment contracts that get paid by the minute, as an example.”
Shares of Dynamix jumped 30% in premarket trading.
Ether has taken the spotlight in crypto from bitcoin in recent months as investors anticipated the stablecoin bill known as the GENIUS Act would be signed into the first major U.S. crypto law, which President Trump did Friday. The regulatory clarity should benefit institutions and brands becoming more interested in tokenization, which includes stablecoins, most of which are issued on the Ethereum network.
Ether has doubled in the last three months and last week, ether ETFs posted a record $2.18 billion in weekly inflows.
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