Apple has acquired WiFiSLAM which specializes in extending location data and positioning to indoor locations using Wi-Fi for “around” $20 million according to a report by The Wall Street Journal  that .

WSJ also was able to get Apple to confirm the accquisition, but did not share its purpose for the company. According to the available description of the firm, the company has created technology that uses ambient WiFi signals to precisely track the location of a smartphone or other mobile devices.

Allow your smartphone to pinpoint its location (and the location of your friends) in real-time to 2.5m accuracy using only ambient WiFi signals that are already present in buildings. We are building the next generation of location-based mobile apps that, for the first time, engage with users at the scale that personal interaction actually takes place. Applications range from step-by-step indoor navigation, to product-level retail customer engagement, to proximity-based social networking.

The purchase is expected to supplement Apple’s Maps application and compete with Google’s crowd sourced “Indoor Maps” project. Currently, the “Indoor Maps” project is limited to large-crowd locations such as airports, stadiums and shopping centers.