Archive for GPS
by Ewan Spence
December 17, 2007 at 9:36 am · Filed under GPS, Software, Usage + Usability, WIMM, mobile social networking
While we’ve all focused on messages that get to you while you are mobile, I thought I’d point out another sort of mobile message – the message that comes from a mobile, to a recipient. And with the flexibility of a computer in your pocket, Nokia’s Sports Tracker (currently in beta) is yet another signpost to the future and what Web 2.0 and mobile can do for messaging.
The application on the handset is very simple. It takes a record of your location using either a bluetooth GPS or (on phones such as Nokia’s N95) the built in GPS. From this lots of info can be derived… your speed, average pace, height and a bundle of other stats from your trips you make. The N95’s built in accelerometers even help with a pedometer coming into the mix. Just hit start and stop at the relevant times. This of course is great for people who perhaps are doing jogging for fitness, or taking long cycle rides (like myself) but it also has a bundle of other uses; two examples…
Vegas the Dog. He’s mentioned a lot in Nokia keynotes on this – his owner strapped an N95 to his dog collar and started to record the walks that Vegas made. Not just where he went as an owner, but where Vegas went when he was tearing round parks, in trees, and after chickens. Where once complicated machinery and gadgets were needed to analysis the habits of the canine, now a simple phone can manage it all.
The second use is when I travel abroad and my family wants to know where I am. Nokia’s Sports Tracker can upload your route to a social network website (http://sportstracker.nokia.com/) where you register as a user, invite your friends, and share where you’ve been with them through the mobile component. All very Web 2.0, but it clearly answers the question “Where’s Dad?†when he’s off bouncing around conferences on the west coast. If I’m feeling particularly ‘open source’ I can turn live tracking on and give a constant “Ewan is here†report.
(Hmm, that might be something to consider for running in the background come prom night….)
So let’s not be blinkered to straight text messages coming into a handset as being the vanguard of mobile messaging. Modern communication is two-way, and the data we can provide is but limited to the sensors we can add to a mobile device.
by Russell Shaw
October 14, 2007 at 7:47 am · Filed under GPS
With deforestation, resource-related land grabs and other assorted woes, it is becoming increasingly difficult for many of the globe’s indigenous populations to hang on to the old ways.
That said, the Mbendjele Yaka people of the northern Congo in Africa are using new technology to hang on to the old ways.
The Tropical Forest Trust has given these people an unspecified number of GPS devices. The devices are not for helping the Mbendjele Yaka find their way. Instead, the Mbendjele Yaka (often referred to as northern pygmies) are using GPS to mark out forest areas and even specific trees that are sacred to them and which they would like to be preserved.
That’s Baka, a Mbenddjele Yaka, at the top of this post.
This information is then conveyed to logging companies such as Congolaise Industrielle des Bois, which has pledged tohonor the requests of the Mbendjele Yaka.
But why GPS, rather than verbal, illustrated, or written requests to save specific locations and trees?
For that we turn to Tropical Forst trust executive director Scott Poynton, who spoke to Reuters about this last Wednesday.
“The sets have icons on them, so they don’t have to be able to read and write. They basically go out and say OK, click, here is a sacred site, and a GPS point is taken and links up to the satellite,” Poynton told Reuters.
“They can wander through the forest and map all of the areas–the tombs of their ancestors, hunting grounds, sacred areas, water holes, areas of medicinal plants–these are all captured on GPS points, all downloaded on the computer,” he added.
“And suddenly, you’ve got a map.”
by Imran Ali
September 30, 2007 at 7:00 pm · Filed under Bluetooth, Communication, Devices, GPS, GSM, Mesh, Mobile messaging 2.0, SDR, Wifi
A pair of recent articles run by the BBC and the New York Times respectively shed light on a pair of innovations that may profoundly affect mobile communication and infrastructure in coming years…
Though mesh networking applied to mobile telephony has long been a promising area of research, with projects such as MIT’s Roofnet and Dublin’s WAND, Terranet are possibly the first to bring ad-hoc , wireless mesh networking to mobile telephony.
Inspired by poor cell coverage during visits to Africa, handsets modified with Terranet software can locate nearby cellphones and route calls, handset-to-handset, until the they reach their destination.
Though currently, I believe, confined to voice, it’s not difficult to envisage a future where voice, data, and messages can jump from phone to phone using the most available or appropriate network; whether Bluetooth, Wifi, WiMax, UWB or plain old GSM.
Though not the replacement for GSM that Terranet’s Anders Carlius suggests, it’s a useful compliment to existing mobile technology, particularly for areas with low to no mobile coverage and if Terranet can bring its technology to near ubiquity.
On a related note, the NYT’s coverage of Software Defined Radio this weekend raises some important questions about base station and indeed handset technology. SDR’s fast becoming a mobile wet dream, enabling handsets to potentially support any radio standards simply by applying software updates.
Coupled with mesh networking, it becomes possible to imagine mobile messaging and communications being routed across multiple radio networks, handsets and base stations, potentially improving resilience, availability and coverage for all types of mobile communication.
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Read the NYT’s coverage of SDR here and the BBC’s piece on Terranet here…
by Imran Ali
September 16, 2007 at 7:58 pm · Filed under BUG, Chumby, Devices, GPS, Greenphone, Long Tail, Open Source, Openmoko, Platforms, Tuxphone, Wifi, touch screens
My dad was an electrician by profession, but even from childhood, he loved to take things apart and rebuild them into something new. An original tinkerer/hacker; when thieves stole a TV from Dad’s car, he designed and retrofitted an alarm of his own design; when we couldn’t install a doorbell to our aluminium framed front door, he designed and built a bell triggered by the opening of the letterbox. He’d love what the Bug Labs guys are about to launch…
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Bug Labs’ BUG product is something I’ve been jonesing to see for a couple months. BUG is essentialy an open source, modular consumer electronics platform that purports to making hardware design as easy as writing web applications.
The BUG system consists of…
- The BUGbase: a Linux-based computer with wifi, ethernet, USB, some onboard memory and rechargable batteries.
- BUGmodules: The company plans to offer GPS, cameras, touchscreen, motion sensors, keyboards and audio modules over the course of the next few months.
- Software: A combination of a software API and a developer community (BUGnet); I’m interested to see how Bug will enabled the various hardware components to be ’scripted’ together.
Open source hardware is nothing new - from my good friend Surj Patel’s Tuxphone project, to Trolltech’s Greenphone, the Chumby and Openmoko’s Neo1973 - but BUG’s moving beyond a single device made of open source components, to a series of hardware modules that can be combined and remixed into new device categories. BUG may represent the opening of the Long Tail of consumer electronics.
The implications on mobile communications are profound. What kinds of niche wifi messaging devices will BUG enable? Imagine the development of GSM, EDGE or 3G BUGmodules, leveraged by the BUGnet community?
Maybe BUG will enable my Dad to remix his car alarm with periodic texts asserting its GPS coordinates next time it’s stolen…
