Ubiquitous GIS
location based services
I am currently in Seoul, Korea at the NGIS Policy in Ubiquitous Computing Environment conference. I presented a paper at the conference on ?The Technologies and Applications of Geographic Computing?.
The term ?ubiquitous computing? was coined by Mark Weiser in a 1991 Scientific American article. Ubiquitous computing, also called pervasive computing, is a relatively new field of information technology which examines how computers are embedded in the environment ? in cars, in home appliances, as telephone hand sets and even sewn into cloths. Advances in hardware, networks, software and data now make it possible to distribute and embed geographic sensor, analysis and display systems within other applications and hardware architectures. Ubiquitous computing enables both distributed and mobile applications, and offers interesting implications for geographic information users. It has been taken up in several application areas many of which have direct relevance to GIS ? distributed systems, mobility, location-based services, sensor-webs / sentient computing, transportation telematics and indoor location technologies.
Ubiquitous geographic computing has now found its way into many geographic application areas from tracking resources such as people and vehicles, recording the location of utility and transportation infrastructure assets, mobile data entry and mapping for inspections, permitting, environmental assessment, as well as personal navigation and even a personal fitness trainer.
Ubiquitous GIS brings together four important technology components: user appliances, wireless networks, server-hosted data and applications, and a location fixing technologies. Although many people tend to focus attention on user appliances (cell phones, PDAs, Tablets, etc.) in my view the server is much the most important element. Mobile GIS applications based on lightweight, low cost mobile devices require strong servers and services.
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