From Amazon's latest business move, it would seem like the company behind the Kindle Fire, and one of the biggest e-tailers in the world is getting into the 3D mapping business. Amazon have just acquired the four-person, 3D mapping company 'UpNext'.

Details of the deal aren't available, but one can assume that Amazon is interesting in UpNext's mapping technology, and could be applied to applied to a future Amazon service, or product. But the problem is that none of the current Kindles sport GPS capabilities, which means providing maps on Amazon-branded products doesn't make sense, yet. But with news of a new Kindle Fire on its way, maybe the next-gen Fire will have GPS capabilities, and the first version of the company's newly acquired talent.

Amazon could choose to bake the mapping technology into their various iOS- or Android-based apps, or they could even release their own stand-alone navigation software, Amazon have the power to do it. The future of Amazon just got a lot more mappy.