NOVOGO Launches First Voice-Command GPS Navigators - NOVOGO V | GPS Lodge.com
location based services
NOVOGO V Series navigator is the first personal navigation device equipped with advanced voice command function. With one simple word from your mouth and your NOVOGO V Series takes you to your desired destination and prevents the danger of distracted driving. Besides this innovative feature, NOVOGO V Series boosts a stylish, sleek lightweight design that comes with pre-loaded accurate maps, crystal clear voice guidance, and Free, Real-Time TMC.
NOVOGO, the developer and manufacturer of the cutting edge portable personal navigation solutions, introduces its V Series PNDs (Personal Navigation Devices), the state-of-the-art portable car navigation system in the world.
NOVOGO launches a complete range of products, the V Series (V70 USA and V70 North America), in the fast-growing portable GPS market to fulfill different needs for different users. NOVOGO V Series is reliable, multi-feature and pocket-sized; it represents a new and easy way to travel around the world. With a NOVOGO V Series in your hand, you will never have to endure the pain of uncertain directions and getting lost. You will always know where you are and how to get to your destination.
Voice Command
NOVOGO V Series are the first portable GPS navigation devices that come with advanced voice command function. Simply say the name of your destination from a set of previously recorded address file, the NOVOGO V Series navigator automatically calculates the fastest routes to your destination. The hassle of inputting the address manually is eliminated and the highest driving safety and navigation comfort are ensured.
Free, Real-Time Traffic Message Channel (TMC)
NOVOGO V Series navigators also implement a revolutionary clever feature, the Free Real-Time TMC Function (available in most European countries). It receives real time traffic information from the radio broadcast and then automatically recalculates route to avoid any traffic jams or accidents. And it is totally FREE! With NOVOGO V Series, a real dynamic and responsive navigation comes true. They will represent the most ideal solutions for the high demanding travelers.
Advanced Technology
Equipped with the most advanced technologies available in the market, NOVOGO V Series guarantees the best performances and the highest reliability. The V Series features the newest SiRF Star III 20 channel GPS Receiver, Intel 400MHz processor, 64MB SDRAM memory, 3.5” high quality LCD Touch Screen Panel, SD and CF Type II memory card support.
Friendly and Intuitive User Interface
NOVOGO V Series navigators are extremely easy to use. Simply take it out of the box and you are ready to go. It requires absolutely zero technical knowledge to install. With our intuitive user-friendly interface, your destination is only a few easy taps away.
To ensure the most accurate navigation, NOVOGO V Series comes with more than 400 crystal clear voice instructions and door-to-door 3D maps that display the details of the directions.
To make your navigation experience even easier, NOVOGO V Series are geared with 10 customized hotkeys and a remote controller that grants access to passengers that wish to share the fun duty of navigation.
Sleek Design, Mobility & Professional Docking Kit
NOVOGO V Series’ highly stylish and sleek design comes in various elegant cover plate choices that suit any car interior. End-users can choose the colorful cover plates by themselves. With a slim body line of 25mm and weight of a merely 260 gram, NOVOGO V Series fits easily into your pocket and hand bag. It is a great companion for both holidays and business trips. The sturdy suction-mount docking kit secures your NOVOGO navigation devices with a simple click and allows full mobility to transfer your NOVOGO navigators from car to car. With the power supply connector embedded in the docking station, you will never be disturbed by the cable of cigarette lighter charger again. Just plug the cable into the docking station, and leave it there when you take your portable NOVOGO navigator away.
Removable & Rechargeble Battery
NOVOGO V Series features one other innovation: removable and rechargeable batteries that guarantee unlimited power supply. You will never have to worry about the lack of external power source. If you want to go for a 1-day hiking trip in the mountains, just bring an extra battery.
The device offers voice guidance in nearly 15 languages, and comes pre-loaded with maps Europe, USA and Canada that include POIs, signposts and others. Priced at £549.99, more info is available from Novogo's website.
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Posted by Scott Martin at April 3, 2006 07:48 AM
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Monday, April 03, 2006
Mapquest Navigation on Mobile Phones | GPS Lodge.com
location based services
AOL unit MapQuest on Monday unveiled a mobile map service that customers can use on their cellular phones, complete with voice directions, text and maps in a bid to expand on the popularity of its Internet maps. The MapQuest Navigator will be marketed as a cheaper alternative to navigation systems built into cars.
Interestingly enough this follows their agreement to work with TomTom to sell the MapQuest PND - a modified TomTom GO 300 - see related story. Clearly Mapquest is trying to leverage their mapping and directions equity into this new growing and lucrative space.
In order to get the software for the service to consumers' phones, MapQuest is working on agreements with cellphone operators. The service could work in cellphones sold by Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp., the company said. "A big part of our future is mobile ... We have users of mapquest.com that already trust us. This is just a better way for us to guide our users to their destinations," said Alan Beiagi, MapQuest's general manager of wireless.
MapQuest, which has about 40 million monthly users of its Internet driving directions and mapping services, hopes its online popularity and features such as turn-by-turn voice prompts give it an edge over offers from rivals such as Google Inc. and InfoSpace.
No word on pricing or availability.
Read More in: GPS News
Related Articles:
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NOVOGO Launches First Voice-Command GPS Navigators - NOVOGO V - Apr 03, 2006
Garmin Launches GPSMAP 378 and GPSMAP 478 - Mar 27, 2006
Came straight to this page? Visit GPS Lodge for all the latest news.
Posted by Scott Martin at April 3, 2006 07:57 AM
Comments
location based services
AOL unit MapQuest on Monday unveiled a mobile map service that customers can use on their cellular phones, complete with voice directions, text and maps in a bid to expand on the popularity of its Internet maps. The MapQuest Navigator will be marketed as a cheaper alternative to navigation systems built into cars.
Interestingly enough this follows their agreement to work with TomTom to sell the MapQuest PND - a modified TomTom GO 300 - see related story. Clearly Mapquest is trying to leverage their mapping and directions equity into this new growing and lucrative space.
In order to get the software for the service to consumers' phones, MapQuest is working on agreements with cellphone operators. The service could work in cellphones sold by Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp., the company said. "A big part of our future is mobile ... We have users of mapquest.com that already trust us. This is just a better way for us to guide our users to their destinations," said Alan Beiagi, MapQuest's general manager of wireless.
MapQuest, which has about 40 million monthly users of its Internet driving directions and mapping services, hopes its online popularity and features such as turn-by-turn voice prompts give it an edge over offers from rivals such as Google Inc. and InfoSpace.
No word on pricing or availability.
Read More in: GPS News
Related Articles:
Garmin Forerunner 201 - $20 Mail in Rebate at Amazon - Apr 03, 2006
NOVOGO Launches First Voice-Command GPS Navigators - NOVOGO V - Apr 03, 2006
Garmin Launches GPSMAP 378 and GPSMAP 478 - Mar 27, 2006
Came straight to this page? Visit GPS Lodge for all the latest news.
Posted by Scott Martin at April 3, 2006 07:57 AM
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Google Mellows Ad Terms For Maps
location based services
A change in verbiage in Google's terms of service for Google Maps allows users to opt-out of advertising that may be delivered through the service.
Either Google hasn't dispensed with its April Fool's pranks yet, or the company has embarked on a kinder, gentler approach with its products.
The latest recipient of Google goodwill, Google Maps third-party developers, will now see a change in language in the terms of service for the product. 'Googling Google' blogger Garett Rogers wrote of the before and after terms of use changes, highlighting the changes between the two.
In the "before" version, Google reserved the right to start feeding advertising into map images at any time and without notice. By virtue of complying with the terms of use, users agreed to display those ads without modification.
Not very friendly corporate-speak, but given the composition of most end-user license agreements these days, not entirely unexpected either.
The new friendly Google provides 90 days notice prior to the commencement of advertising if and when it should decide to start sending ads to Maps. Users can terminate usage of Google Maps in that 90 day window, or provide Google with notice that advertising will not be accepted.
What isn't clear is what Google's response will be to a refusal; we hope to hear back from Google about this.
The noted change in terms of service comes in the wake of the launch of Placebase's Pushpin LE online mapping service. Placebase offers a payment model that offers the Google Maps API, support options, and no advertising or branding on maps they deliver, in contrast to the basic Google Maps service.
location based services
A change in verbiage in Google's terms of service for Google Maps allows users to opt-out of advertising that may be delivered through the service.
Either Google hasn't dispensed with its April Fool's pranks yet, or the company has embarked on a kinder, gentler approach with its products.
The latest recipient of Google goodwill, Google Maps third-party developers, will now see a change in language in the terms of service for the product. 'Googling Google' blogger Garett Rogers wrote of the before and after terms of use changes, highlighting the changes between the two.
In the "before" version, Google reserved the right to start feeding advertising into map images at any time and without notice. By virtue of complying with the terms of use, users agreed to display those ads without modification.
Not very friendly corporate-speak, but given the composition of most end-user license agreements these days, not entirely unexpected either.
The new friendly Google provides 90 days notice prior to the commencement of advertising if and when it should decide to start sending ads to Maps. Users can terminate usage of Google Maps in that 90 day window, or provide Google with notice that advertising will not be accepted.
What isn't clear is what Google's response will be to a refusal; we hope to hear back from Google about this.
The noted change in terms of service comes in the wake of the launch of Placebase's Pushpin LE online mapping service. Placebase offers a payment model that offers the Google Maps API, support options, and no advertising or branding on maps they deliver, in contrast to the basic Google Maps service.
MapQuest: Features
MapQuest Navigator (Coming Soon!)
Peace of Mind of Knowing You’ll Never Be Lost Again!
location based services
MapQuest Navigator uses the latest technology to turn your phone into a full GPS Navigation system. Decide where you want to go and MapQuest Navigator will help you find it and guide you there quickly and easily, anywhere, anytime!
MapQuest Navigator provides you with voice-guided, turn-by-turn directions to a location either from a selected starting point or from your current location, using GPS technology.
Routes can be optimized for speed or distance when driving, or for pedestrian routes when you're traveling by foot.
Other features include: More Images: 1 2 3 4
• Audible turn-by-turn directions using GPS technology on your phone.
• Allows you to enjoy the navigation experience while making and receiving phone calls.
• Millions of points of interest to explore with the same quality and relevance offered on MapQuest.com.
• Optimized routing calculation to find the fastest or shortest route, or to avoid toll roads, highways or other specific elements.
• Full pedestrian navigation that ignores vehicle turning and one-way driving restrictions.
• Print-quality dynamic color maps with zoom-in/out, pan and point-on-map functionality.
• Intuitive location search for address, intersection or zip code, including unique point-of-interest search capabilities.
• Automatic re-routing without the need to contact the server.
• Support for Java, BREW, Windows mobile and Symbian.
Based on the next generation technology, Mobile Optimized Navigation Data (MOND), from Telmap, a world-leading provider of mobile mapping and navigation solutions MapQuest Navigator displays dynamic full-color maps and provide accurate turn-by-turn navigation instructions by voice, graphics, and text. The system includes a database of millions of restaurants, hotels, theaters and other points of interest, which consumers can navigate to, direct dial to make reservations or send any location to a friend via text message.
MapQuest Navigator (Coming Soon!)
Peace of Mind of Knowing You’ll Never Be Lost Again!
location based services
MapQuest Navigator uses the latest technology to turn your phone into a full GPS Navigation system. Decide where you want to go and MapQuest Navigator will help you find it and guide you there quickly and easily, anywhere, anytime!
MapQuest Navigator provides you with voice-guided, turn-by-turn directions to a location either from a selected starting point or from your current location, using GPS technology.
Routes can be optimized for speed or distance when driving, or for pedestrian routes when you're traveling by foot.
Other features include: More Images: 1 2 3 4
• Audible turn-by-turn directions using GPS technology on your phone.
• Allows you to enjoy the navigation experience while making and receiving phone calls.
• Millions of points of interest to explore with the same quality and relevance offered on MapQuest.com.
• Optimized routing calculation to find the fastest or shortest route, or to avoid toll roads, highways or other specific elements.
• Full pedestrian navigation that ignores vehicle turning and one-way driving restrictions.
• Print-quality dynamic color maps with zoom-in/out, pan and point-on-map functionality.
• Intuitive location search for address, intersection or zip code, including unique point-of-interest search capabilities.
• Automatic re-routing without the need to contact the server.
• Support for Java, BREW, Windows mobile and Symbian.
Based on the next generation technology, Mobile Optimized Navigation Data (MOND), from Telmap, a world-leading provider of mobile mapping and navigation solutions MapQuest Navigator displays dynamic full-color maps and provide accurate turn-by-turn navigation instructions by voice, graphics, and text. The system includes a database of millions of restaurants, hotels, theaters and other points of interest, which consumers can navigate to, direct dial to make reservations or send any location to a friend via text message.
Google Maps Mania: Google Maps API V2 officially launches
location based services
For those of you creating Google Maps mashups and tools with the Google Maps API, this post is for you:
Google Maps Product Manager Bret Taylor has indicated in this post on the Google Maps API Official Blog that the Google Maps API Version 2 is officially launching. Some of the new features include two additional satellite zoom levels (previously only available from Google Local map browsing) and an "Overview Map" you can display in your mashups that "displays an attractive and collapsible map in the corner of the screen".
The terms of use are a bit more friendly as well. There are no longer any page view limits (although Google requests that you let them know if the site you're launching the map on gets in excess of 500,000 page views per day. This is so they can prepare in advance to handle your traffic). There is also a hint of advertising coming to mashups in the terms: "90-day notice before any advertising-related change. The Maps API does not include advertising. If we ever decide to change this policy, we will give all developers at least 90 days' notice via this blog."
Bret links to an upgrade guide that will help with your migration from V1 to V2 and encourages bug reports and experiences through this upgrade to be posted on the API Group.
[Check out the full post here]
location based services
For those of you creating Google Maps mashups and tools with the Google Maps API, this post is for you:
Google Maps Product Manager Bret Taylor has indicated in this post on the Google Maps API Official Blog that the Google Maps API Version 2 is officially launching. Some of the new features include two additional satellite zoom levels (previously only available from Google Local map browsing) and an "Overview Map" you can display in your mashups that "displays an attractive and collapsible map in the corner of the screen".
The terms of use are a bit more friendly as well. There are no longer any page view limits (although Google requests that you let them know if the site you're launching the map on gets in excess of 500,000 page views per day. This is so they can prepare in advance to handle your traffic). There is also a hint of advertising coming to mashups in the terms: "90-day notice before any advertising-related change. The Maps API does not include advertising. If we ever decide to change this policy, we will give all developers at least 90 days' notice via this blog."
Bret links to an upgrade guide that will help with your migration from V1 to V2 and encourages bug reports and experiences through this upgrade to be posted on the API Group.
[Check out the full post here]
AOL Launches Mobile Browsing Service That Automatically Adapts Web Pages to Mobile Screens
location based services
AOL has announced the debut of new mobile information and location services, including a new addition to the suite of mobile AOL Search services.
The new offering is a mobile browsing service that automatically adapts Web pages for mobile screens. The easy-to-use mobile browsing service can be used by wireless subscribers with Web-enabled phones.
According to a survey AOL conducted with the Associated Press and Pew Research Center, 52 percent of adults keep their cell phone turned on all day, everyday, and 40 percent of those aged 18-29 are likely to drop their landline once and for all. The report reveals that more than 30 percent of adults want to search and browse the Web from their cell phone, while 47 percent say that mobile maps and driving directions are a "must have" on the next phone they buy.
AOL's new mobile browsing service has been seamlessly integrated into the existing suite of mobile AOL Search services, including Web search, shopping search and local search, to make it easy for consumers to navigate the Web and find anything they need from their mobile device.
The new browsing service also marks the expansion of AOL's alliance with InfoGin Ltd. AOL uses InfoGin's transcoding and content analysis technologies on its new service.
The company is also bringing its mobile portal services to Sprint subscribers in the USA. With AOL's mobile Web portal mobile users have access to the mobile AOL Search, AIM, AOL Mail and AOL Pictures services as well as AOL's news, entertainment, sports and weather content.
Sprint subscribers now have access to AOL's instant messaging community via downloadable mobile AIM applications or through the wireless Web. Features include presence awareness via the mobile Buddy List(R) feature, IM Forwarding and two-way desktop-to-mobile (IM2SMS) messaging services.
To top the news, AOL debuted MapQuest's new Web-enabled service, and promised soon to make the MapQuest Navigator available. The software will enable consumers to access Global Positioning Service (GPS), turn-by-turn, voice-guided directions on their mobile phones.
location based services
AOL has announced the debut of new mobile information and location services, including a new addition to the suite of mobile AOL Search services.
The new offering is a mobile browsing service that automatically adapts Web pages for mobile screens. The easy-to-use mobile browsing service can be used by wireless subscribers with Web-enabled phones.
According to a survey AOL conducted with the Associated Press and Pew Research Center, 52 percent of adults keep their cell phone turned on all day, everyday, and 40 percent of those aged 18-29 are likely to drop their landline once and for all. The report reveals that more than 30 percent of adults want to search and browse the Web from their cell phone, while 47 percent say that mobile maps and driving directions are a "must have" on the next phone they buy.
AOL's new mobile browsing service has been seamlessly integrated into the existing suite of mobile AOL Search services, including Web search, shopping search and local search, to make it easy for consumers to navigate the Web and find anything they need from their mobile device.
The new browsing service also marks the expansion of AOL's alliance with InfoGin Ltd. AOL uses InfoGin's transcoding and content analysis technologies on its new service.
The company is also bringing its mobile portal services to Sprint subscribers in the USA. With AOL's mobile Web portal mobile users have access to the mobile AOL Search, AIM, AOL Mail and AOL Pictures services as well as AOL's news, entertainment, sports and weather content.
Sprint subscribers now have access to AOL's instant messaging community via downloadable mobile AIM applications or through the wireless Web. Features include presence awareness via the mobile Buddy List(R) feature, IM Forwarding and two-way desktop-to-mobile (IM2SMS) messaging services.
To top the news, AOL debuted MapQuest's new Web-enabled service, and promised soon to make the MapQuest Navigator available. The software will enable consumers to access Global Positioning Service (GPS), turn-by-turn, voice-guided directions on their mobile phones.
MapQuest Launches New Mobile Services
location based services
MpaQuest has announced two new products in the market, the MapQuest Navigator and Web based mobile services. MapQuest Navigator, in partnership with Telmap, will enable consumers to access Global Positioning Service (GPS), turn-by-turn, voice-guided directions on mobile phones.
The system includes a database of millions of restaurants, hotels, theaters and other points of interest which consumers can navigate to, direct dial to make reservations or send any location to a friend via text message.
MapQuest also announced that it is making it easier for consumers with Web-enabled mobile phones to access MapQuest.com. The free Web service is specifically designed and formatted for mobile phones and provides a convenient way for anyone with a Web-enabled phone to access interactive maps, get driving directions and find places. Consumers can access this service on their mobile phones by going to http://wap.mapquest.com.
MapQuest expects the MapQuest Navigator service will be available through major U.S. wireless carriers later in 2006.
location based services
MpaQuest has announced two new products in the market, the MapQuest Navigator and Web based mobile services. MapQuest Navigator, in partnership with Telmap, will enable consumers to access Global Positioning Service (GPS), turn-by-turn, voice-guided directions on mobile phones.
The system includes a database of millions of restaurants, hotels, theaters and other points of interest which consumers can navigate to, direct dial to make reservations or send any location to a friend via text message.
MapQuest also announced that it is making it easier for consumers with Web-enabled mobile phones to access MapQuest.com. The free Web service is specifically designed and formatted for mobile phones and provides a convenient way for anyone with a Web-enabled phone to access interactive maps, get driving directions and find places. Consumers can access this service on their mobile phones by going to http://wap.mapquest.com.
MapQuest expects the MapQuest Navigator service will be available through major U.S. wireless carriers later in 2006.
Google Offers Ads In Local Mapping Service | March 31, 2006
location based services
The ads appear on a Google Local map whenever a searcher enters a query that matches advertisers' chosen keywords and business information.
By Antone Gonsalves
TechWeb.com
Mar 31, 2006 06:32 PM
Google Inc. on Friday starting offering businesses advertising on its local mapping service.
The ads are available for business locations in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, and appear on a Google Local map whenever a searcher enters a query that matches advertisers' chosen keywords and business information.
The text ads appear as a highlighted listing in the search results column, and through a map marketer that expands to show additional details when a person clicks on the ad title or the marker itself. The expanded marker can include the business's phone number and an image.
A text-only version of each local business ad automatically runs on Google.com and other sites in the search engine's advertising network. The ad is ranked and priced like any other running on Google.
To use the service, businesses must sign up for a Google AdWords account.
location based services
The ads appear on a Google Local map whenever a searcher enters a query that matches advertisers' chosen keywords and business information.
By Antone Gonsalves
TechWeb.com
Mar 31, 2006 06:32 PM
Google Inc. on Friday starting offering businesses advertising on its local mapping service.
The ads are available for business locations in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, and appear on a Google Local map whenever a searcher enters a query that matches advertisers' chosen keywords and business information.
The text ads appear as a highlighted listing in the search results column, and through a map marketer that expands to show additional details when a person clicks on the ad title or the marker itself. The expanded marker can include the business's phone number and an image.
A text-only version of each local business ad automatically runs on Google.com and other sites in the search engine's advertising network. The ad is ranked and priced like any other running on Google.
To use the service, businesses must sign up for a Google AdWords account.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Nokia Releases the Nokia Communicator 9300 in the USA
location based services
Nokia has released their Nokia 9300 Communicator business device with BlackBerry Connect support. The smartphone is based on the Series 80 interface and have been available outside the USA since late 2004. The Nokia 9300 is a slim mobile phone, and when opened, it reveals a full keyboard and a 65,536 color screen.
Available through Cingular Wireless, the Nokia 9300 features the popular BlackBerry wireless services via the BlackBerry Connect licensing program from Research In Motion (RIM).
In addition to offering the BlackBerry Connect e-mail solution, the Nokia 9300 is also compatible with several third-party applications that use the EDGE network for wireless communications.
The Nokia 9300 features one-touch access to personal information and office applications through eight dedicated function buttons on the device's integrated keyboard. A five-way joystick allows users to easily navigate menus to find the features and functions they need to quickly accomplish tasks and find information.
This tri-mode smartphone supports GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks, plus integrated infrared and Bluetooth capabilities. It comes with 80 MB RAM (expandable up to 2 GB with an optional MMC card) of free user memory.
According to Symbian Ltd, EDGE is America’s largest and fastest national wireless data network. It is available in 13,000 cities and towns, and along more than 40,000 miles of major highways in the U.S.
location based services
Nokia has released their Nokia 9300 Communicator business device with BlackBerry Connect support. The smartphone is based on the Series 80 interface and have been available outside the USA since late 2004. The Nokia 9300 is a slim mobile phone, and when opened, it reveals a full keyboard and a 65,536 color screen.
Available through Cingular Wireless, the Nokia 9300 features the popular BlackBerry wireless services via the BlackBerry Connect licensing program from Research In Motion (RIM).
In addition to offering the BlackBerry Connect e-mail solution, the Nokia 9300 is also compatible with several third-party applications that use the EDGE network for wireless communications.
The Nokia 9300 features one-touch access to personal information and office applications through eight dedicated function buttons on the device's integrated keyboard. A five-way joystick allows users to easily navigate menus to find the features and functions they need to quickly accomplish tasks and find information.
This tri-mode smartphone supports GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks, plus integrated infrared and Bluetooth capabilities. It comes with 80 MB RAM (expandable up to 2 GB with an optional MMC card) of free user memory.
According to Symbian Ltd, EDGE is America’s largest and fastest national wireless data network. It is available in 13,000 cities and towns, and along more than 40,000 miles of major highways in the U.S.
India says no to Google Earth's peering
Concerned over distinct satellite images of its strategic installations that Google makes available online, India has decided to mask some of the sensitive images itself.
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Minister of State Prithviraj Chauhan said the prime minister's office on Thursday instructed the country's defense and science and technology ministries to evaluate images of sensitive Indian locations and proceed with measures for masking them.
"A meeting was held yesterday to discuss the issue, which was attended by representatives from various departments including defense and IT," said a source from India's Department of Science and Technology, "and the Department of Information Technology has been authorized to devise the method and strategy to ensure that images of sensitive sites appear in a manner that can pose no danger to the country."
Although according to the ministry official the method to be used for masking these images haven't yet been decided, reports doing rounds suggest that the images could either be blocked or, high-resolution imagery could be replaced with low-resolution images "making it difficult for subversive elements to take a close look at important sites and pinpoint their gradient and location."
Officials at the Internet search engine were not available for comments on this latest development, but officials from Google India's public-relations agency said that Google is willing to cooperate with the Indian Government and has taken the governmental concerns about Google Earth and Google Maps "very seriously."
In June 2005 Google launched its Google Earth tool, powered by Keyhole Technology from Keyhole, a company that Google acquired earlier. By combining satellite images and other cutting-edge technologies like GPS data, GIS tools, an intuitive video-game like interface, powerful graphics, video-streaming and 3-D capability of computers, Google Earth claims that it "transports" a user to any address in the United States, Canada or Western Europe.
Google also claims that Google Earth is the only service that offers high-resolution images for most parts of the world on the Internet. It offers other hi-tech features like 3-D "walkthrough" capability as well as a "measurement" feature that permits one to get approximate distances. Information can be overlaid over "layers" so that themes like hospitals, hot-spots, restaurants and libraries can be separated into layers and super-imposed when needed. The results can be stored, printed or e-mailed.
In September 2005 Google included India in its service by releasing satellite images of New Delhi, South Bombay (Mumbai), Bangalore and Hyderabad. But although many in India hailed the new inclusion as something "amazing that would delight anyone," the country's securities agencies weren't pleased at all, saying the service also revealed sensitive sites like a dock in Bombay that berths Indian naval ships, official residents of its prime minister and president, some of the country's air force bases, airports like Delhi's Palam Airport and even some of the country's "sensitive" nuclear installations.
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(Ads by Google)One of India's most vocal critics of the service was none other than President A P J Abdul Kalam, who says that it poses a significant security risk to the country.
Speaking at a top-level security meeting soon after Google included India in its service, the president said, "Earth observations by Google Earth, most of you may or may not be aware (makes) high resolutions pictures freely available on the Internet provided by many sites including www.fas.org and Google Earth; I am going to demonstrate the aerial pictures of some of the sensitive locations of India. Let us also look at similar areas elsewhere. You will realize that some of the developing countries, which are already in danger of terrorist attacks, have been singularly chosen to provide such high resolutions about them. When you look deeper into it, you would realize that the specific laws in some countries, regarding spatial observations over their territory and U.N. recommendations about the display of spatial observations is inadequate. I would urge all of you to discuss amongst yourself and come up with the possible solutions for the government to take up."
India is not the only country that is objecting to Google Earth and similar services. Citing that Google Earth offers "just the kind of raw material terrorists need to mount an attack," the governments of Australia, Russia, South Korea and Thailand too are reportedly demanding that Google blur images of their sensitive assets that can be viewed clearly on the Earth site.
In fact, the United States too has blanked out images of the White House and other sensitive sites from the Web site.
Interestingly though, the defense arm of the Indian government is not losing sleep. Defense Ministry sources say that the country's armed forces have always factored in the threat of satellite imagery of their military bases available freely on the Internet, in their defense strategies. For instance, frontline air force bases have adequate protection systems in place, while satellite images of ships of India's naval core do not make any difference, since ships are always on mobile platforms.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
Concerned over distinct satellite images of its strategic installations that Google makes available online, India has decided to mask some of the sensitive images itself.
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Minister of State Prithviraj Chauhan said the prime minister's office on Thursday instructed the country's defense and science and technology ministries to evaluate images of sensitive Indian locations and proceed with measures for masking them.
"A meeting was held yesterday to discuss the issue, which was attended by representatives from various departments including defense and IT," said a source from India's Department of Science and Technology, "and the Department of Information Technology has been authorized to devise the method and strategy to ensure that images of sensitive sites appear in a manner that can pose no danger to the country."
Although according to the ministry official the method to be used for masking these images haven't yet been decided, reports doing rounds suggest that the images could either be blocked or, high-resolution imagery could be replaced with low-resolution images "making it difficult for subversive elements to take a close look at important sites and pinpoint their gradient and location."
Officials at the Internet search engine were not available for comments on this latest development, but officials from Google India's public-relations agency said that Google is willing to cooperate with the Indian Government and has taken the governmental concerns about Google Earth and Google Maps "very seriously."
In June 2005 Google launched its Google Earth tool, powered by Keyhole Technology from Keyhole, a company that Google acquired earlier. By combining satellite images and other cutting-edge technologies like GPS data, GIS tools, an intuitive video-game like interface, powerful graphics, video-streaming and 3-D capability of computers, Google Earth claims that it "transports" a user to any address in the United States, Canada or Western Europe.
Google also claims that Google Earth is the only service that offers high-resolution images for most parts of the world on the Internet. It offers other hi-tech features like 3-D "walkthrough" capability as well as a "measurement" feature that permits one to get approximate distances. Information can be overlaid over "layers" so that themes like hospitals, hot-spots, restaurants and libraries can be separated into layers and super-imposed when needed. The results can be stored, printed or e-mailed.
In September 2005 Google included India in its service by releasing satellite images of New Delhi, South Bombay (Mumbai), Bangalore and Hyderabad. But although many in India hailed the new inclusion as something "amazing that would delight anyone," the country's securities agencies weren't pleased at all, saying the service also revealed sensitive sites like a dock in Bombay that berths Indian naval ships, official residents of its prime minister and president, some of the country's air force bases, airports like Delhi's Palam Airport and even some of the country's "sensitive" nuclear installations.
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(Ads by Google)One of India's most vocal critics of the service was none other than President A P J Abdul Kalam, who says that it poses a significant security risk to the country.
Speaking at a top-level security meeting soon after Google included India in its service, the president said, "Earth observations by Google Earth, most of you may or may not be aware (makes) high resolutions pictures freely available on the Internet provided by many sites including www.fas.org and Google Earth; I am going to demonstrate the aerial pictures of some of the sensitive locations of India. Let us also look at similar areas elsewhere. You will realize that some of the developing countries, which are already in danger of terrorist attacks, have been singularly chosen to provide such high resolutions about them. When you look deeper into it, you would realize that the specific laws in some countries, regarding spatial observations over their territory and U.N. recommendations about the display of spatial observations is inadequate. I would urge all of you to discuss amongst yourself and come up with the possible solutions for the government to take up."
India is not the only country that is objecting to Google Earth and similar services. Citing that Google Earth offers "just the kind of raw material terrorists need to mount an attack," the governments of Australia, Russia, South Korea and Thailand too are reportedly demanding that Google blur images of their sensitive assets that can be viewed clearly on the Earth site.
In fact, the United States too has blanked out images of the White House and other sensitive sites from the Web site.
Interestingly though, the defense arm of the Indian government is not losing sleep. Defense Ministry sources say that the country's armed forces have always factored in the threat of satellite imagery of their military bases available freely on the Internet, in their defense strategies. For instance, frontline air force bases have adequate protection systems in place, while satellite images of ships of India's naval core do not make any difference, since ships are always on mobile platforms.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
CellSpotting, A Global Location Based Information Service
location based services
A Global Location Based Information Service
“CellSpotting.com” is a global location based information service for mobile (GSM and UMTS) users.
Use CellSpotting to find information for the place you are at! and even better, you can help and give information to others about places you know! CellSpotting is a Collaborate Location Based service built by its users.
This is what you can use it for:
- Find the name and location information about a place you are at.
- Track your Cellspotting friends, You can find the whereabout of your Cellspotting friends.
- Find the distance and direction to spotted cells!
How do I use it:
Download the Cellspotting Client into your cellphone, (currently Nokia Series60, see Software section). Run the Cellspotting client, select the "Go Cellspotting" menu choice and it will connect to and query the CellSpotting Database. Hopefully the cell is already known and you can get some useful information back. The connection can be dial up or preferably gprs. If you stumble across an unknown cell you become a cell “Discoverer” and can help give additional information about the location!. This way you can help other CellSpotting users when they come to your home town!
Take a look at our Coverage Map (You can help extend it!)
You can also see some recent activity in the Statistics pages.
Services:
Friend Spotting
CellSpotting.com is not only a geographic location service, it also serves as an information exchange system among friends, It can from the beginning help to locate all your friends, provided that they also use the service. For it to work, the cell information and the location of each cell needs to be stored and kept updated, and this is done as a collaborate work made by its users. The use of the service is free of charge, it works as a collaborate surveying of the mobile networks of the world.
Tourist services, and more.....
We are working on additional services that make use of the database, such as tourist information, event-guides, local interest guides, maybe a “jazz clubs near me” and other types of categorized services. The goal is to keep it available for users free of charge. The location information provided by users stay in the public domain, but CellSpotting will still reserve the right to use the information for professional use. Furthermore, the service can help to give information (from various categories) relevant to your needs at the location you are at.
How CellSpotting works:
First some mobile network basics.
A mobile phone is a radio device, when turned on, it is in contact with a “cell”. A cell is the smallest geographic area covered by a base station in the mobile network. The size of a cell can be from 100 meters in urban areas up to a few kilometers in rural areas. Each cell is identified by a number, the “cellid”. Cells are grouped into areas and the cells and areas are operated by a Mobile Operator. The idea with CellSpotting.com is to read this information from the phone, use it as a “key” to look up the geographic location of the phone. If the cell is not known to the CellSpotting server then the user can assist, and help to provide with geographic information, it can can be a street address or some other information regarding the location of the cell. Is the cellid really unique, what about areas and operators? True, the cellid is a number and is only unique within an Area, but together with the areaid and the network code, they form a 3 part key and can uniquely identify the cell.
Using it
How do I use it and how can I help?
Users of Cellspotting.com can run the Cellspotting software, fill, use and have fun with CellSpotting. The software can read which cell it in, use the cell information as a key and lookup the location information from the CellSpotting server. If you happen to stumble across an unknown cell , then you have become a discoverer and can help to fill in relevant geographic information for this cell. What do I need to start using CellSpotting? The easiest way is if you have a modern phone such as a Nokia Series60 phone (3650, N-Gage, 7160, 6630 ...) Then you can download the CellSpotting software HERE.
If you have an Sony Ericsson P800, as soon as Sony Ericsson has made the functionality available for developers, then we hope that the UIQ software can be downloaded Here!. We are sorry that UIQ phones (from at least Sony Ericsson and Motorola) do not provide the correct cell information using the public Symbian api's at the moment. Sorry about that, but it is beyond our control.
How accurate is the geographic information in the database?
Technically it depends on how dense your operator has placed his cells, in urban areas it is dense and rural areas not so dense, The good thing is that it roughly represent how you would respond when someone asks “Where are you?“ If you are in a city you often refer to a street corner, building or so, and when you are in an rural area you respond with a name referring to rural location. Informationwise the accuracy depends on how well all of us users fill in the information about cells, areas and operators. please use common sense and good “CellSpotting Etiquette”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright Cellspotting.com
location based services
A Global Location Based Information Service
“CellSpotting.com” is a global location based information service for mobile (GSM and UMTS) users.
Use CellSpotting to find information for the place you are at! and even better, you can help and give information to others about places you know! CellSpotting is a Collaborate Location Based service built by its users.
This is what you can use it for:
- Find the name and location information about a place you are at.
- Track your Cellspotting friends, You can find the whereabout of your Cellspotting friends.
- Find the distance and direction to spotted cells!
How do I use it:
Download the Cellspotting Client into your cellphone, (currently Nokia Series60, see Software section). Run the Cellspotting client, select the "Go Cellspotting" menu choice and it will connect to and query the CellSpotting Database. Hopefully the cell is already known and you can get some useful information back. The connection can be dial up or preferably gprs. If you stumble across an unknown cell you become a cell “Discoverer” and can help give additional information about the location!. This way you can help other CellSpotting users when they come to your home town!
Take a look at our Coverage Map (You can help extend it!)
You can also see some recent activity in the Statistics pages.
Services:
Friend Spotting
CellSpotting.com is not only a geographic location service, it also serves as an information exchange system among friends, It can from the beginning help to locate all your friends, provided that they also use the service. For it to work, the cell information and the location of each cell needs to be stored and kept updated, and this is done as a collaborate work made by its users. The use of the service is free of charge, it works as a collaborate surveying of the mobile networks of the world.
Tourist services, and more.....
We are working on additional services that make use of the database, such as tourist information, event-guides, local interest guides, maybe a “jazz clubs near me” and other types of categorized services. The goal is to keep it available for users free of charge. The location information provided by users stay in the public domain, but CellSpotting will still reserve the right to use the information for professional use. Furthermore, the service can help to give information (from various categories) relevant to your needs at the location you are at.
How CellSpotting works:
First some mobile network basics.
A mobile phone is a radio device, when turned on, it is in contact with a “cell”. A cell is the smallest geographic area covered by a base station in the mobile network. The size of a cell can be from 100 meters in urban areas up to a few kilometers in rural areas. Each cell is identified by a number, the “cellid”. Cells are grouped into areas and the cells and areas are operated by a Mobile Operator. The idea with CellSpotting.com is to read this information from the phone, use it as a “key” to look up the geographic location of the phone. If the cell is not known to the CellSpotting server then the user can assist, and help to provide with geographic information, it can can be a street address or some other information regarding the location of the cell. Is the cellid really unique, what about areas and operators? True, the cellid is a number and is only unique within an Area, but together with the areaid and the network code, they form a 3 part key and can uniquely identify the cell.
Using it
How do I use it and how can I help?
Users of Cellspotting.com can run the Cellspotting software, fill, use and have fun with CellSpotting. The software can read which cell it in, use the cell information as a key and lookup the location information from the CellSpotting server. If you happen to stumble across an unknown cell , then you have become a discoverer and can help to fill in relevant geographic information for this cell. What do I need to start using CellSpotting? The easiest way is if you have a modern phone such as a Nokia Series60 phone (3650, N-Gage, 7160, 6630 ...) Then you can download the CellSpotting software HERE.
If you have an Sony Ericsson P800, as soon as Sony Ericsson has made the functionality available for developers, then we hope that the UIQ software can be downloaded Here!. We are sorry that UIQ phones (from at least Sony Ericsson and Motorola) do not provide the correct cell information using the public Symbian api's at the moment. Sorry about that, but it is beyond our control.
How accurate is the geographic information in the database?
Technically it depends on how dense your operator has placed his cells, in urban areas it is dense and rural areas not so dense, The good thing is that it roughly represent how you would respond when someone asks “Where are you?“ If you are in a city you often refer to a street corner, building or so, and when you are in an rural area you respond with a name referring to rural location. Informationwise the accuracy depends on how well all of us users fill in the information about cells, areas and operators. please use common sense and good “CellSpotting Etiquette”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright Cellspotting.com
VC Confidential: Back to the Future (B2B)
location based services
It seems like everyone is suddenly a B2C, Web 2.0 service driven predominantly by user generated content. The first wave of B2C plays have hit, delivering strong initial financial success to investors and management. The blood is in the water and now, as is usually the case in the venture business, everyone is jumping in with both feet. You are seeing several of the pioneers like YooTube (video) and Digg (news) and some later entrants like Tagworld (community) going exponential in their growth. There is also a very long tail of new entrants coming in, taking advantage of the low cost of entry. While the revolution is early, the models are maturing quickly and the fields are getting crowded, making it increasingly difficult to break out from the crowd. Furthermore, there are a handful of logical acquirors (IAC, Yahoo, Google, etc) and once they have either bought or built their own, they will not necessarily be looking for high priced future acquisitions. This is similar to the Web 1.0 phenomenon. By 1998, enough success stories had generated enough copy cats that the chance for success dropped dramatically.
Furthermore, many of these models rely on giving away the service for free to drive rapid adoption while leveraging ad models for revenue. Recessions and slowing economic conditions have a chilling effect on the advertising world. Remember when Yahoo’s revenue dropped 40% in one year from $1.1B to 0.7B in 2001? Additionally, click fraud threatens the engine at the heart of much of this, Google’s and other ad networks’ CPC offerings.
The trick is in going where the puck will be, not where it is today. Enterprise applications are out of vogue. The sales cycles are long and firms can’t fall back on the simple ad-based models driving the B2C world. That said, there are numerous opportunities for proven technologies from the B2C side to migrate over to the B2B world. These include everything from search to social networking to blogging to predictive markets. Corporations don’t like being guinea pigs, so the fact that millions, if not tens of millions of users, have pounded away at technology, helps to reduce the “technology risk” associated with it. Clearly, these technologies will not simply transfer over as corporations are much more demanding and careful in controlling the experience with their customers and employees. Blogs and Wiki’s are two classic examples. They are concerned about rogue participants flaming their products and services or disseminating false/erroneous information.
That said, I predict that we will see a resurgence of B2B services and offerings in the coming year. We are already seeing it with several of our own Web Service infrastructure companies. After years in the wilderness, they are starting to close deals at an increasingly rapid pace.
So, get ahead of the curve. Help corporations adapt the new, promising B2C technologies to their more rigorous business needs. You have a broad array of open-source, web-service and Web 2.0 technologies to mash together in your efforts. There are many areas you can target ranging from customer intimacy & intelligence to location based services to mobile workforce applications to database analysis opportunities. The key is to get out ahead of the pack before it becomes obvious that the worm has turned.
Want to get way, way, way ahead of the pack? Later this week...Quantum Physics. Follow the white rabbit, Neo.
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April 02, 2006 in Next Gen | Permalink
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location based services
It seems like everyone is suddenly a B2C, Web 2.0 service driven predominantly by user generated content. The first wave of B2C plays have hit, delivering strong initial financial success to investors and management. The blood is in the water and now, as is usually the case in the venture business, everyone is jumping in with both feet. You are seeing several of the pioneers like YooTube (video) and Digg (news) and some later entrants like Tagworld (community) going exponential in their growth. There is also a very long tail of new entrants coming in, taking advantage of the low cost of entry. While the revolution is early, the models are maturing quickly and the fields are getting crowded, making it increasingly difficult to break out from the crowd. Furthermore, there are a handful of logical acquirors (IAC, Yahoo, Google, etc) and once they have either bought or built their own, they will not necessarily be looking for high priced future acquisitions. This is similar to the Web 1.0 phenomenon. By 1998, enough success stories had generated enough copy cats that the chance for success dropped dramatically.
Furthermore, many of these models rely on giving away the service for free to drive rapid adoption while leveraging ad models for revenue. Recessions and slowing economic conditions have a chilling effect on the advertising world. Remember when Yahoo’s revenue dropped 40% in one year from $1.1B to 0.7B in 2001? Additionally, click fraud threatens the engine at the heart of much of this, Google’s and other ad networks’ CPC offerings.
The trick is in going where the puck will be, not where it is today. Enterprise applications are out of vogue. The sales cycles are long and firms can’t fall back on the simple ad-based models driving the B2C world. That said, there are numerous opportunities for proven technologies from the B2C side to migrate over to the B2B world. These include everything from search to social networking to blogging to predictive markets. Corporations don’t like being guinea pigs, so the fact that millions, if not tens of millions of users, have pounded away at technology, helps to reduce the “technology risk” associated with it. Clearly, these technologies will not simply transfer over as corporations are much more demanding and careful in controlling the experience with their customers and employees. Blogs and Wiki’s are two classic examples. They are concerned about rogue participants flaming their products and services or disseminating false/erroneous information.
That said, I predict that we will see a resurgence of B2B services and offerings in the coming year. We are already seeing it with several of our own Web Service infrastructure companies. After years in the wilderness, they are starting to close deals at an increasingly rapid pace.
So, get ahead of the curve. Help corporations adapt the new, promising B2C technologies to their more rigorous business needs. You have a broad array of open-source, web-service and Web 2.0 technologies to mash together in your efforts. There are many areas you can target ranging from customer intimacy & intelligence to location based services to mobile workforce applications to database analysis opportunities. The key is to get out ahead of the pack before it becomes obvious that the worm has turned.
Want to get way, way, way ahead of the pack? Later this week...Quantum Physics. Follow the white rabbit, Neo.
Email this • Add to del.icio.us • Subscribe to this feed • Digg this
April 02, 2006 in Next Gen | Permalink
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GPS Lodge: Monthly Round Up for March 2006 | GPS Lodge.com
GPS Lodge: Monthly Round Up for March 2006
It was a big month for new GPS announcements, partially due to the fact that CeBIT took place in Germany and the fact that many manufacturers are readying their new fleet of GPS units for the summer months. The spring quarter is a big quarter for companies like Magellan, Garmin and TomTom who tend to sell the majority of mobile GPS units.
TomTom launched their new line of TomTom GO’s: TomTom GO 510, TomTom GO 710 and the flagship TomTom GO 910. These all have a widescreen format.
Garmin announced a new mid-tier line: StreetPilot C510, StreetPilot C530 and the StreetPilot C550, with Bluetooth functionality.
They also made a push into adding GPS to mobile smart phones with the Garmin Mobile 20.
There are a couple of new Nuvi’s: the Nuvi 310 and the Nuvi 360 with Bluetooth functionality.
The new GPSMap 378 and GPSMap 478 are land and sea models for navigation on the water and on the road.
Finally, Garmin introduced a new entry level color handheld GPS the eTrex Venture Cx with SiRF star III chipset.
Navman just announced a new line of mobile GPS units. The Navman iCN720 and Navman iCN 750 come with a nice widescreen high resolution display. Navman also announced that you can take pictures with your new iCN and use those pictures to mark Points of Interest, as well as share those pictures with friends and family.
There were several announcements that talked of connectivity for GPS units; opening up the opportunity to track your friends’ locations on your GPS, or your workers, or your arch enemy if you can figure out how to buddy up with him or her. Read more in TomTom WORK and Garmin Buddies.
We also saw evidence of new Magellan products coming to the market with the leak of the Magellan RoadMate 860T and the RoadMate 3000T, both traffic capable.
Here at the GPS Lodge, we received the Garmin Forerunner 205 for Review, (so far so good - I really like it a lot) and offered our opinion on the Garmin StreetPilot C340 vs. the Lowrance iWay 350c.
Finally, we’re excited about our improved mailing list. If you want a weekly recap of the events in the GPS world delivered to your inbox as well as occasional exclusive items, sign up below.
GPS Lodge: Monthly Round Up for March 2006
It was a big month for new GPS announcements, partially due to the fact that CeBIT took place in Germany and the fact that many manufacturers are readying their new fleet of GPS units for the summer months. The spring quarter is a big quarter for companies like Magellan, Garmin and TomTom who tend to sell the majority of mobile GPS units.
TomTom launched their new line of TomTom GO’s: TomTom GO 510, TomTom GO 710 and the flagship TomTom GO 910. These all have a widescreen format.
Garmin announced a new mid-tier line: StreetPilot C510, StreetPilot C530 and the StreetPilot C550, with Bluetooth functionality.
They also made a push into adding GPS to mobile smart phones with the Garmin Mobile 20.
There are a couple of new Nuvi’s: the Nuvi 310 and the Nuvi 360 with Bluetooth functionality.
The new GPSMap 378 and GPSMap 478 are land and sea models for navigation on the water and on the road.
Finally, Garmin introduced a new entry level color handheld GPS the eTrex Venture Cx with SiRF star III chipset.
Navman just announced a new line of mobile GPS units. The Navman iCN720 and Navman iCN 750 come with a nice widescreen high resolution display. Navman also announced that you can take pictures with your new iCN and use those pictures to mark Points of Interest, as well as share those pictures with friends and family.
There were several announcements that talked of connectivity for GPS units; opening up the opportunity to track your friends’ locations on your GPS, or your workers, or your arch enemy if you can figure out how to buddy up with him or her. Read more in TomTom WORK and Garmin Buddies.
We also saw evidence of new Magellan products coming to the market with the leak of the Magellan RoadMate 860T and the RoadMate 3000T, both traffic capable.
Here at the GPS Lodge, we received the Garmin Forerunner 205 for Review, (so far so good - I really like it a lot) and offered our opinion on the Garmin StreetPilot C340 vs. the Lowrance iWay 350c.
Finally, we’re excited about our improved mailing list. If you want a weekly recap of the events in the GPS world delivered to your inbox as well as occasional exclusive items, sign up below.
Beyond Locative Media
location based services
Abstract
Locative media has been attacked for being too eager to appeal to commercial interests as well as for its reliance on Cartesian mapping systems, yet if these critiques are well-founded, they are also nostalgic, invoking a notion of art as autonomous from the circuits of mass communication technologies, which we argue no longer holds. This essay begins with a survey of the development of locative media, how it has distanced itself from net art, and how it has been critically received before going on to address these critiques and ponder how the field might develop.
At the 2004 Transmediale festival in Berlin, a locative media project titled .walk (dot-walk) received an honorable mention in the prestigious festival's Software Award. Developed by Utrecht-based arts collective Social Fiction, .walk combined computer code and "psychogeographic" urban exploration. Participants of .walk left the doors of the gallery to follow a randomly generated path through the city, thereby, according to Social Fiction, "calculating" the city as though it were a "peripatetic computer." The success of this simple project is representative of a larger event taking place in the media art world, in which, having left behind net art, locative media escaped the bounds of the screen to enter the city at large.
Locative media emerged over the last half decade as a response to the decorporealized, screen-based experience of net art, claiming the world beyond either gallery or computer screen as its territory. Initially coined as a title for a workshop hosted by RIXC, an electronic art and media center in Latvia during 2002, the term is derived from the "locative" noun case in the Latvian language which indicates location and vaguely corresponds to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by." A report produced during the workshop outlined the scope for locative media: "Inexpensive receivers for global positioning satellites have given amateurs the means to produce their own cartographic information with military precision... As opposed to the World Wide Web the focus here is spatially localized, and centred on the individual user; a collaborative cartography of space and mind, places and the connections between them." In what is in many ways the ur-text for locative media, the 1999 Headmap Manifesto, Ben Russell described an incipient "new world":
location aware, networked, mobile devices make possible invisible notes attached to spaces, places, people and things.
[...]
computer games move outside and get subversive.
Sex and even love are easier to find.
Real space can be marked and demarcated invisibly.
…what was once the sole preserve of builders, architects and engineers falls into the hands of everyone: the ability to shape and organise the real world and the real space.
Real borders, boundaries and space become plastic and maleable [sic], statehood becomes fragmented and global.
Geography gets interesting.
Cell phones become internet enabled and location aware, everything in the real world gets tracked, tagged, barcoded and mapped.
Overlaying everything is a whole new invisible layer of annotation. Textual, visual and audible information is available as you get close, as context dictates, or when you ask.
The related free networks movement is similarly interventionist. Here any distinction between artist and hacker disappears in an attempt to create wireless networks that would provide free connectivity while also eluding both government surveillance and commercial control on the Internet. Emerging out of a Do-It-Yourself punk culture, projects like the London-based "Consume the Net" sought to build a nation-wide peer-to-peer infrastructure of free wireless nodes throughout the United Kingdom. Similar grassroots projects helped catalyze communities of artists globally from Berlin to San Francisco. In suggesting that ubiquitous Internet access would change our relationship with place by overlaying a second virtual world over the physical one, the free wireless movement was a seminal source for locative media's ambitions. Moreover, in the United Kingdom, the government's ownership of virtually all geographic data encouraged participants in free wireless, who sought to make information freely accessible, to move into more mapping-based practices when these became available. It was in this context that much of the initial locative media work emerged. Since its inception, then, locative media's practitioners have claimed an avant-garde position, insisting that their work is capable of not only creating a paradigmatic shift in the art world, but also that it can reconfigure our everyday life as well by renewing our sense of place in the world.
Locative media's recent rise to prominence came at an opportune moment, just as the net art movement showed signs of exhaustion. On March 31, 2004, in response to the disappearance of an "Internet Art" section from that year's Whitney Bienniel, Ben Sisario, an art critic for the New York Times, declared that having lost its initial novelty, the net art boom had come to an end. Net art would continue, he concluded, but its earlier sense of purpose or distinctiveness was gone.1 In response to Sisario's article, net art practitioner Patrick Litchy observed, "this is not to say that net art is 'dead' per se, but at least in institutional discourse it has been chiseled into art history and so has been drained of its dynamism." Only if net art could "morph into hybrid forms" he suggested, could it still retain its oppositionality. During the last two years, a new set of practices which Turbulence.org director Jo-Anne Green collectively refers to as "Networked Performance"—among which locative media is a key player—has come to displace the hegemony of net art within media art circles, with the term "locative media" now becoming common currency in art establishment venues such as ArtForum. In 2004, Leonardo Electronic Almanac would recognize locative media's rise with a call for papers. In December 2005, Rhizome.org editor and curator-at-large Marisa Olson proposed that the long-established "Net Art News" mailing list be renamed to "Media Art News" to encompass "software art, performance, sound art, data visualization, technology-enabled social sculpture, locative media, video, and the myriad other branches of new media practice."
Where net art sought to maintain its autonomy in order to claim art status, locative media has been far less interested in this such claims. On the contrary, as Saul Albert observes, the fundamental manifestations of locative media—maps—and the typical site—the handheld PDA—are ubiquitous and easily understood. In reaching beyond art, locative media has been welcomed with often remarkable claims, in particular by computer industry pundits suggesting that it will be "the Next Big Thing." Mike Liebhold of the Institute for the Future (IFF) understands "geohackers, locative media artists, and psychogeographers" as key players in constructing the "geospatial web," in which the web becomes tagged with geospatial information, a development that he sees as having "enormous unharvested business opportunities." Even more emphatically, in another essay in Leonardo, Anthony Townsend, who works with Liebhold at the IFF and was formerly one of the most outspoken advocates of the free wireless movement, states: "[The IFF's] forecast for the next decade is that this context-aware computing will emerge as the third great wave of modern digital technology."2 While it is important not to overstate locative media's influence in the geospatial web, the fact remains that the IFF and others look to locative media artists as prime movers within this space.
Nor is this lost on locative media practitioners. Net art often promoted its uselessness as a means of affirming its own autonomy as art, but the practitioners of Locative Media often seem less preoccupied with these concerns and indeed often embrace the possibility of commercial application. And if some net art projects such as Carnivore by Alex Galloway claimed autonomy through oppositionality and resistance by developing a radical political stance against the libertarian-entrepreneurial "California Ideology" that, spread eagerly by Wired Magazine, so dominated the discourse on the Internet in the 90's, it appears that for the moment a fair number of locative media producers seems content to collaborate with industry and government. Unlike net art, which largely sought to emphasize its autonomy from the dot.com boom, this new media art practice is often eager to blur distinctions between art and capital. It is no coincidence that one of the most important media art blogs today goes by the name "We Make Money Not Art."
Broadly speaking, locative media projects can be categorized under one of two types of mapping, either annotative—virtually tagging the world—or phenomenological—tracing the action of the subject in the world. Roughly, these two types of locative media—annotative and tracing—correspond to two archetypal poles winding their way through late 20th century art, critical art and phenomenology, perhaps otherwise figured as the twin Situationist practices of détournement and the dérive. Annotative projects generally seek to change the world by adding data to it, much as the practice of détournement suggested. The paradigmatic annotative work is the Urban Tapestries project by Proboscis In a series of trials in 2003 and 2004, participants used Global Positioning System (GPS) enabled 3G mobile phones and handheld PDAs to annotate areas of London, thereby embedding social knowledge in the landscape of the city for others to retrieve later. In their project 34n 118w, Jeffrey Knowlton, Naomi Spellman, and Jeremy Hight had users take Tablet PCs with Global Positioning Devices and headphones to a vacant lot in downtown Los Angeles adjacent to an old railroad depot now used as an architecture school. As participants walked around the site, they would hear fictional statements purporting to recount the history of the place played back to them. The result, Hight claims, "creates a sense that every space is agitated (alive with unseen history, stories, layers)." Similarly, in adopting the mapping-while-wandering tactics of the dérive, tracing-based locative media suggest that we can re-embody ourselves in the world, thereby escaping the prevailing sense that our experience of place is disappearing in late capitalist society. For examples of this type of work we might look to Christian Nold's 2002 Crowd Compiler. Here the artist generates time-lapse images of crowds in public space to understand the movement of all the individuals in one place over time simultaneously. More typically, these projects resort to the map, using high technology to reproduce the famous diagram created for urban sociologist Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe to trace the daily movements of a young woman living in the XVIe arrondissement of Paris over the course of one year, a map of great importance to the Situationists. Where annotative projects seek to demystify, tracing-based projects typically seek to use high technology to stimulate dying everyday practices such as walking or occupying public space. In this spirit, Jo Walsh and Schulyer Erle's London Free Map marks the paths of participants in the street through paths downloaded from GPS units, thereby locating participants in the world while also producing copyright-free maps of London. .walk, which we cited earlier, is another such project, seeking to get people out of the gallery or conference room and into the streets in order to create a "generative psychogeography."
Social Fiction's invocation of "generative psychogeography" is no accident. Situationism is frequently claimed as a precursor to the locative media movement. That said, it is worth observing that over time Situationism increasingly turned to code. Situationist leader Guy Debord steadily whittled away at art practices, finally leaving the movement as a series of programmatic texts that advocated intervening in the city with only minor modifications, such as adding light switches to street lights so that they could be turned on and off at will and allowing people to wander in subways after they were shut off at night or even abandoning that degree of interventionism and simply turning to a ceaseless repetition of the dérive.3 Locative media, too, is virtually unthinkable except as a question of code. The .walk project represents this reliance on code, turning individuals into processors. Virtually all locative media projects rely on programs for their execution. The resulting product is generally either delivered live to a user in the field who then performs the piece or, alternatively, crystallized as an indexical trace of the event, later displayed at a gallery or on a web site. But if the work itself resides in the pure code itself, what is the difference between locative media and software development?
This is a central question for locative media today, as it is for many contemporary artists today who are using research and development, or at least research, as models. Raised on a steady diet of institutional critique, this generation sees art’s purview as transdisciplinary and eagerly pursues projects that could be classified as research (Center for Land Use Interpretation or Multiplicity) or design and development (Andrea Zittel or Jorge Pardo). In the case of locative media, this means that artists adopt the model of research and development wholesale, looking for corporate sponsorship or even ventura capital. Proboscis, for example received sponsorship from Orange, a 3G cellular network, computer hardware manufacturer Hewlett-Packard and had proprietary geodata donated to it by the Ordnance Survey for their Urban Tapestries project. Blast Theory, a locative media group composed of several London-based avant-garde theatre artists have gained renown for projects such as Can You See Me Now (2001), Uncle Roy All Around You (2003), and I Like Frank (2004), in which they used location-aware mobile mapping devices to coordinate interactions of audience and performers in both real and virtual space. Their performances and installations have been supported throught corporate sponsorship, public arts funding, and through a six-year collaboration with the Mixed Reality Laboratory at the University of Nottingham. The group's own web site claims "Blast Theory has a history of working with corporate clients to deliver innovative marketing strategies," thereby creating "commercial projects that draw global audiences to compelling, high adrenaline interactive experiences. The team of artists and scientists has worked with blue chip clients in the television, apparel and telecoms sectors to launch products, build profile, inspire staff and engage customers." Anthropologist Anne Galloway, who studied Urban Tapestries for her dissertation, has critiqued this model of hybrid arts/researcher and community organizing for not yet having developed a mature sense of accountability, professionalism and ethics.4
The reluctance of many locative media practitioners to position their work as political has led some theorists such as Andreas Broekman (director of the Transmediale Festival in Berlin) to accuse locative media of being the "avant-garde of the 'society of control'," referring to Gilles Deleuze's description of the contemporary regime of power. Broekman suggests that since locative media is fundamentally based on the appropriation of technologies of surveillance and control, its practitioners have a duty to address that fact in that their work. Instead, however, Geert Lovink claims that the movement has turned the media art conference circuit into a "shopping-driven locative spectacle." Media artist Coco Fusco also launched a headlong attack on new media practices associated with networks and mapping, declaring: "It is as if more than four decades of postmodern critique of the Cartesian subject had suddenly evaporated." Fusco minced few words: "In the name of a politics of global connectedness, artists and activists too often substitute an abstract 'connectedness' for any real engagement with people in other places or even in their own locale." Instead, she suggested a return to the kind of art practices made famous at the 1993 Whitney Biennial: "Socially conscious artists and activists, rather than embracing tactics that rely on dreams of omniscience, would do well to examine the history of globalism, networks, dissent and collective actions in order to understand that they are rooted in the geopolitical and cultural margins." Artist-theorist Jordan Crandall would similarly indict the locative project for enslaving us to a new Cartesianism, condemning the "resurgence of temporal and locational specificity witnessed in new surveillance and location-aware navigational technologies." In "Drifting Through the Grid: Psychogeography and Imperial Infrastructure," Brain Holmes discusses locative media's recuperation of Situationism, stating "All too often in contemporary society, aesthetics is politics as decor... the aesthetic form of the dérive is everywhere. But so is the hyper-rationalist grid of Imperial infrastructure. And the questions of social subversion and psychic deconditioning are wide open, unanswered, seemingly lost to our minds, in an era when civil society has been integrated to the military architecture of digital media." According to Holmes, since the United States Army controls GPS satellites, in using them we allow ourselves to be targeted by a global military infrastructure and to be "interpellated into Imperial ideology." These critiques are well-founded, but their antagonist tenor often seems to be an inversion of the boosterist claims made in favor of locative media. There's something peculiar, even comical, in how the movement is, on the one hand "the Next Big Thing" to some, a capitalist apocalypse to others.
But perhaps this shouldn't be so surprising. In "Postmodernism, or the Logic of Late Capitalism," Fredric Jameson, writing of Vincent Van Gogh's painting of peasant shoes, notes how the work simultaneously represents the peasant's brutal world of labor and toil while creating a Utopian gesture, an "act of compensation" through the "glorious materialization of pure colour in oil paint." But so much is a redemptive re-reading of Herbert Marcuse's writings on the affirmative nature of art.5 What makes Jameson's observation important is a third, darker side, this "whole new Utopian realm of the senses" becomes "part of some new division of labour in the body of capital, some new fragmentation of the emergent sensorium which replicates the specializations and divisions of capitalist life at the same time that it seeks in precisely such fragmentation a desperate Utopian compensation for them. The artist's role is only temporary then, and already flawed from the start. But even if Jameson suggests that the process of absorption is inescapable, he also vehemently rejects any suggestion that we should abandon art. In the world of late capital, Jameson argues, the drive to envision Utopia is still important and, above all, the task of cognitive mapping one's place in postmodern hyperspace is crucial, a claim that locative media has certainly embraced. Deleuze, too, agrees, writing expressly of the society of control: "There is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons."
We suggest that locative media offers a conceptual framework by which to examine the certain technological assemblages and their potential social impacts. Unlike net art, produced by a priestly technological class for an elite arts audience, locative media strives, at least rhetorically, to reach a mass audience by attempting to engage consumer technologies, and redirect their power. Today, this is more important than ever. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), we are entering into a society of ubiquitous networked objects. Soon, the ITU observes, objects will be the most prevalent users of the Internet, relentlessly communicating various kinds of data to each other like some flock of Hasbro "emoto-tronic" Furby dolls. What does this turn to what the ITU calls the "Internet of Things" mean, though? Bruno Latour suggests that things are a focus for our time, in particular, a focus that demands the attention of the arts: "'Things' are controversial assemblages of entangled issues, and not simply objects sitting apart from our political passions. The entanglements of things and politics engage activists, artists, politicians, and intellectuals. To assemble this parliament, rhetoric is not enough and nor is eloquence; it requires the use of all the technologies—especially information technology—and the possibility for the arts to re-present anew what are the common stakes."
We can get a sense of what Latour means by this by looking at "MILK," a project by Ieva Auzina and Esther Polak exhibited by Latour in his "Making Things Public" exhibit at ZKM that also won the 2005 Golden Nica at Ars Electronica. The work of a group of Latvian locative media artists, MILK is clearly indebted to more traditional aspects of the movement in that it uses GPS trace-routes. But instead of seeking a phenomenological regrounding of the self, the MILK team traced the path of milk from its origins in the udder of a cow in rural Latvia to a cheese vendor in the Netherlands. To be sure, this project is still more suggestive than fully realized: MILK's artists are not terribly interested in Latour's reading and instead see their work more as a form of romantic landscape art. Nevertheless, MILK suggests a powerful vision of how locative technologies could allow one to more fully understand how products are commodified and distributed through the actions of global trade, thereby making visible the networked society. Here Fusco's anti-mapping diatribe runs aground, for when tied to a materialist vision, the recent turn to maps is among the strongest critiques of globalization available to us. Recognizing this, philosopher Alain Badiou referred to the maps of power drawn by artist Mark Lombardi as "the creation of a new possibility of art and a new vision of the world."
In his book Shaping Things, Bruce Sterling suggests that we détourne the Internet of Things itself to become more fully aware of the ecological role of objects in the world. Sterling coins the neologism "Spimes" to refer to future objects that could be aware of their context and transmit "cradle-to-grave" information about where they have been, where they are and where they are going. Cory Doctorow has called Spimes "the hactivist's ultimate tool—an evidentiary rallying point for making the negative outcomes of industrial practices visible and obvious so that we can redress them.] Similarly, even if it is not so much locative as suggestive of such practices, Natalie Jeremijenko's How Stuff Is Made project is something of a response to Sterling and Latour's theories, comprising a visual encyclopedia of photoessays produced by engineering and design students that to document how objects are manufactured and investigates both the labor conditions of that manufacture and its environmental impact.
By geotagging objects instead of people, and having these objects tell us their stories, we might finally realize a thought experiment expressed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau at the very dawn of industrialization. In Émile, his book on the ideal education of a child, Rousseau wrote of "A problem which another child would never heed [that] would torment Émile half a year." Émile and his instructor would go to an elegant dinner hosted by wealthy people where the two are dazzled by the many guests, servants, dishes, and elegant china. In Émile’s ear the instructor whispers "How many hands do you suppose the things on this table passed through before they got here?" The virus or the Trojan horse, is successfully implanted in the child’s mind and the result is a crisis:
In a moment the mists of excitement have rolled away. He is thinking, considering, calculating, and anxious. The child is philosophizing, while philosophers, excited by wine or perhaps by female society are babbling like children. If he asks questions I decline to answer and put him off to another day. He becomes impatient, he forgets to eat and drink, he longs to get away from table and talk as he pleases. What an object of curiosity, what a text for instruction. Nothing has so far succeeded in corrupting his healthy reason; what will he think of luxury when he finds that every quarter of the globe has been ransacked, that some 2,000,000 men have laboured for years, that many lives have perhaps been sacrificed, and all to furnish him with fine clothes to be worn at midday and laid by in the wardrobe at night.6
In other words, we suggest applying the strategies of locative media to create what Rousseau suggested, an awareness of the genealogy of an object as it is embedded in the matrix of its production. This genealogical vision would embody an awareness of the history that Walter Benjamin reminds us is always there, no matter how suppressed:
[T]he cultural heritage we survey has an origin that we cannot contemplate without horror: it owes its existence not merely to the effort of great geniuses who created it, but to the anonymous toil of their contemporaries. There is not a single artifact of culture that is not simultaneously an artifact of barbarism. And just as no artifact is free of barbarism, so too the process of its reception, by means of which it has been passed on from one recipient to the next, is equally fettered.7
If Spimes and their kin make it possible for us to envision new forms of cognitive mapping, we need to guard against using that mapping to only place ourselves, thereby reducing objects to a subservient position in regard to humans. After all, the ITU's prediction of tens of billions of objects connected to the Internet leaves human users as a distinct second. Here, it may be worthwhile revisiting our standard theoretical frames for interpreting technological fetishism. If Marx considered the object as the result of alienation of the product from its production and, by extension, its origins, Freud understood it as symbolic replacement for an irrecoverable object lost in a primordial trauma. For both Marx and Freud, the aliveness of objects is nothing more than an illusion, object fetishism merely a substitute to avoid. But, as Steven Shaviro notes, the fetish object is always more powerful than what it is thought to stand in for [49]. As an art practice, to date, locative media seems fundamentally tied to discourses of representation centered on a human subject, privileging the experience of the human in space (tracing) and time (annotative). To turn Fusco's argument on its head: in both locative media and much of the criticism launched agains the movement, it is as if more than four decades of postmodern critique of the humanist subject had suddenly evaporated. Even MILK's project is not about milk, but rather about the people involved in the production and distribution of milk as it transforms from Latvian biological fluid to Dutch product.
In contrast, Sterling provides us with a darker, more idiosyncratic vision. Humans don't control Sterling's world of Spimes. On the contrary, it is an unruly object world in which people are, at best, "spime wranglers." At the dawn of the Internet of Things we have to wonder if we aren't entering a world in which the object becomes sentient, thereby finally liberating itself from human bondage. If, in the Enlightenment, we learned that nature—in its role as background to human activity—had been replaced by human second nature, then today we are perhaps at the threshold of a machinic third nature. It is the task of whatever remains of art after the locative turn to get involved in the messy business of this new world of objects, even if the Utopian and critical moments that can emerge as a result are only temporary and contingent.
References
1 Ben Sisario, "Internet Art Survives, But the Boom Is Over," The New York Times, March 31, 2004, Section G, p. 11.
2 Anthony Townsend, "Locative Media Artists in the Contested-Aware City", forthcoming essay, Leonardo, Fall 2006.
3 Simon Sadler, The Situationist City, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998).
4 Anne Galloway, in presentation at the PLAN (Pervasive Locative Arts Network) event at the ICA, February 1st 2004.
5 Herbert Marcuse, "The Affirmative Character of Culture," Negations: Essays in Critical Theory (Boston: Beacon, 1968), 88-133.
6 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile, (New York: Dutton, 1974), 127.
7 Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," Illuminations. Essays and Reflections, (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 256. Modified translation used from Geoffrey Waite, "Truckin’ Under a Pink Sky, Seeing Red," Human Rights/Human Wrongs, ed. Robert Hobbs and Frederick Woodard. (Iowa City: Museum of Art, University of Iowa, 1986), 72.
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Beyond Locative Media
from This is Mobility on January 19, 2006 - 4:23pm
Interesting essay over at Network Publics titled Beyond Locative Media:
In contrast, Sterling provides us with a darker, more idiosyncratic vision. Humans don’t control Sterling’s world of Spimes. On the contrary, it is an unruly object w...
Beyond Locative Media
from Smart Mobs on January 18, 2006 - 3:19pm
Networked Publics explores Beyond Locative Media by Marc Tuters and Kazys Varnelis, a richly referenced and linked essay about the geoweb, location-aware media, art, and critical thinking about the uses and effects of technology: Locative media has been a
Submitted by kvarnelis on January 21, 2006 - 3:38am.
Giles Lane's comments + points of correction
Submitted by mtuters on March 3, 2006 - 5:34pm.
Giles sent these comments + points of correction to me via email. I made adjustments accordingly to the Leonardo piece.
Hi Mark,
I came across your recent essay via smartmobs and noticed a couple of
errors in what you wrote about Urban Tapestries. We didn't use either
GPS or 3G mobile phones/systems in UT, but relied on user-declared
positioning (in one trial we used an experimental cell-id request for
locations which was user triggered not automatic). However we did set
up and run an open access 11-node mesh-WiFi network in Bloomsbury
which covered most of the public spaces in a roughly 1km square area
-- apparently one of the first tested and proven (i.e. working) urban
mesh networks in the UK (perhaps elsewhere too). Certainly it was the
first urban mesh using their kit that Locustworld knew of (whose open
source MeshAP system we used):
http://live.locustworld.com/news.php?mesh=27
You might also be interested to know that of our total cash funding
for the project (just under £124,000 UK pounds) Orange (the only
industry partner who contributed cash) provided £20,000 -- roughly
16% of the cash budget. The public sector contribution to Urban
Tapestries comprised 77% of total cash funds. If you take the total
project cost in terms of self-declared resources contributed by all
partners and funders, then Orange's contribution was just 7%. The
biggest contributor of resources (by their own accounting) was France
Telecom R&D who costed their contribution to the project (programming
the Symbian mobile phone version of UT) at £192,500 -- 52% of the
project budget! However it is probably worth bearing in mind that
Proboscis had a team of 12 people working full and part-time over 18
months, whereas FTRD had about 3 people working for 7 months. All
these figures and detailed testimony on the project and its outcomes
are available in the 3 final reports on UT we published back in June
2005:
http://urbantapestries.net/weblog/archives/000130.html
The point of the above figures (particularly the cash ones) is to
reiterate that UT was predominantly a project funded by the public
sector that was run by a non-profit arts organization with some
assistance from industry. We made a point of sharing all our research
results with the public from the start (and, where necessary,
protected the individual contributions of participants in community
workshops and activities). I'm pretty confident that our
collaborative and transdisciplinary approach to the project enabled a
robust internal critique of the project and methodologies during the
process, including an ethnographic study which was published by the
London School of Economics last year:
http://urbantapestries.net/weblog/archives/000120.html
Lastly, I think there might be some further debate over the
interpretation of Anne's presentation last year at PLAN -- Nick West
and I had some correspondence with Anne about her presentation that
was on her blog as comments (these now seem to have been lost).
However I think I recall her saying that she wasn't trying to suggest
that the arts projects had a less ethical or accountable approach,
but that the mechanics of corporations meant that the corporate
projects had a more formal and structured one. Might be interesting
to ask Anne again for clarification?
best wishes,
Giles
reply
location based services
Abstract
Locative media has been attacked for being too eager to appeal to commercial interests as well as for its reliance on Cartesian mapping systems, yet if these critiques are well-founded, they are also nostalgic, invoking a notion of art as autonomous from the circuits of mass communication technologies, which we argue no longer holds. This essay begins with a survey of the development of locative media, how it has distanced itself from net art, and how it has been critically received before going on to address these critiques and ponder how the field might develop.
At the 2004 Transmediale festival in Berlin, a locative media project titled .walk (dot-walk) received an honorable mention in the prestigious festival's Software Award. Developed by Utrecht-based arts collective Social Fiction, .walk combined computer code and "psychogeographic" urban exploration. Participants of .walk left the doors of the gallery to follow a randomly generated path through the city, thereby, according to Social Fiction, "calculating" the city as though it were a "peripatetic computer." The success of this simple project is representative of a larger event taking place in the media art world, in which, having left behind net art, locative media escaped the bounds of the screen to enter the city at large.
Locative media emerged over the last half decade as a response to the decorporealized, screen-based experience of net art, claiming the world beyond either gallery or computer screen as its territory. Initially coined as a title for a workshop hosted by RIXC, an electronic art and media center in Latvia during 2002, the term is derived from the "locative" noun case in the Latvian language which indicates location and vaguely corresponds to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by." A report produced during the workshop outlined the scope for locative media: "Inexpensive receivers for global positioning satellites have given amateurs the means to produce their own cartographic information with military precision... As opposed to the World Wide Web the focus here is spatially localized, and centred on the individual user; a collaborative cartography of space and mind, places and the connections between them." In what is in many ways the ur-text for locative media, the 1999 Headmap Manifesto, Ben Russell described an incipient "new world":
location aware, networked, mobile devices make possible invisible notes attached to spaces, places, people and things.
[...]
computer games move outside and get subversive.
Sex and even love are easier to find.
Real space can be marked and demarcated invisibly.
…what was once the sole preserve of builders, architects and engineers falls into the hands of everyone: the ability to shape and organise the real world and the real space.
Real borders, boundaries and space become plastic and maleable [sic], statehood becomes fragmented and global.
Geography gets interesting.
Cell phones become internet enabled and location aware, everything in the real world gets tracked, tagged, barcoded and mapped.
Overlaying everything is a whole new invisible layer of annotation. Textual, visual and audible information is available as you get close, as context dictates, or when you ask.
The related free networks movement is similarly interventionist. Here any distinction between artist and hacker disappears in an attempt to create wireless networks that would provide free connectivity while also eluding both government surveillance and commercial control on the Internet. Emerging out of a Do-It-Yourself punk culture, projects like the London-based "Consume the Net" sought to build a nation-wide peer-to-peer infrastructure of free wireless nodes throughout the United Kingdom. Similar grassroots projects helped catalyze communities of artists globally from Berlin to San Francisco. In suggesting that ubiquitous Internet access would change our relationship with place by overlaying a second virtual world over the physical one, the free wireless movement was a seminal source for locative media's ambitions. Moreover, in the United Kingdom, the government's ownership of virtually all geographic data encouraged participants in free wireless, who sought to make information freely accessible, to move into more mapping-based practices when these became available. It was in this context that much of the initial locative media work emerged. Since its inception, then, locative media's practitioners have claimed an avant-garde position, insisting that their work is capable of not only creating a paradigmatic shift in the art world, but also that it can reconfigure our everyday life as well by renewing our sense of place in the world.
Locative media's recent rise to prominence came at an opportune moment, just as the net art movement showed signs of exhaustion. On March 31, 2004, in response to the disappearance of an "Internet Art" section from that year's Whitney Bienniel, Ben Sisario, an art critic for the New York Times, declared that having lost its initial novelty, the net art boom had come to an end. Net art would continue, he concluded, but its earlier sense of purpose or distinctiveness was gone.1 In response to Sisario's article, net art practitioner Patrick Litchy observed, "this is not to say that net art is 'dead' per se, but at least in institutional discourse it has been chiseled into art history and so has been drained of its dynamism." Only if net art could "morph into hybrid forms" he suggested, could it still retain its oppositionality. During the last two years, a new set of practices which Turbulence.org director Jo-Anne Green collectively refers to as "Networked Performance"—among which locative media is a key player—has come to displace the hegemony of net art within media art circles, with the term "locative media" now becoming common currency in art establishment venues such as ArtForum. In 2004, Leonardo Electronic Almanac would recognize locative media's rise with a call for papers. In December 2005, Rhizome.org editor and curator-at-large Marisa Olson proposed that the long-established "Net Art News" mailing list be renamed to "Media Art News" to encompass "software art, performance, sound art, data visualization, technology-enabled social sculpture, locative media, video, and the myriad other branches of new media practice."
Where net art sought to maintain its autonomy in order to claim art status, locative media has been far less interested in this such claims. On the contrary, as Saul Albert observes, the fundamental manifestations of locative media—maps—and the typical site—the handheld PDA—are ubiquitous and easily understood. In reaching beyond art, locative media has been welcomed with often remarkable claims, in particular by computer industry pundits suggesting that it will be "the Next Big Thing." Mike Liebhold of the Institute for the Future (IFF) understands "geohackers, locative media artists, and psychogeographers" as key players in constructing the "geospatial web," in which the web becomes tagged with geospatial information, a development that he sees as having "enormous unharvested business opportunities." Even more emphatically, in another essay in Leonardo, Anthony Townsend, who works with Liebhold at the IFF and was formerly one of the most outspoken advocates of the free wireless movement, states: "[The IFF's] forecast for the next decade is that this context-aware computing will emerge as the third great wave of modern digital technology."2 While it is important not to overstate locative media's influence in the geospatial web, the fact remains that the IFF and others look to locative media artists as prime movers within this space.
Nor is this lost on locative media practitioners. Net art often promoted its uselessness as a means of affirming its own autonomy as art, but the practitioners of Locative Media often seem less preoccupied with these concerns and indeed often embrace the possibility of commercial application. And if some net art projects such as Carnivore by Alex Galloway claimed autonomy through oppositionality and resistance by developing a radical political stance against the libertarian-entrepreneurial "California Ideology" that, spread eagerly by Wired Magazine, so dominated the discourse on the Internet in the 90's, it appears that for the moment a fair number of locative media producers seems content to collaborate with industry and government. Unlike net art, which largely sought to emphasize its autonomy from the dot.com boom, this new media art practice is often eager to blur distinctions between art and capital. It is no coincidence that one of the most important media art blogs today goes by the name "We Make Money Not Art."
Broadly speaking, locative media projects can be categorized under one of two types of mapping, either annotative—virtually tagging the world—or phenomenological—tracing the action of the subject in the world. Roughly, these two types of locative media—annotative and tracing—correspond to two archetypal poles winding their way through late 20th century art, critical art and phenomenology, perhaps otherwise figured as the twin Situationist practices of détournement and the dérive. Annotative projects generally seek to change the world by adding data to it, much as the practice of détournement suggested. The paradigmatic annotative work is the Urban Tapestries project by Proboscis In a series of trials in 2003 and 2004, participants used Global Positioning System (GPS) enabled 3G mobile phones and handheld PDAs to annotate areas of London, thereby embedding social knowledge in the landscape of the city for others to retrieve later. In their project 34n 118w, Jeffrey Knowlton, Naomi Spellman, and Jeremy Hight had users take Tablet PCs with Global Positioning Devices and headphones to a vacant lot in downtown Los Angeles adjacent to an old railroad depot now used as an architecture school. As participants walked around the site, they would hear fictional statements purporting to recount the history of the place played back to them. The result, Hight claims, "creates a sense that every space is agitated (alive with unseen history, stories, layers)." Similarly, in adopting the mapping-while-wandering tactics of the dérive, tracing-based locative media suggest that we can re-embody ourselves in the world, thereby escaping the prevailing sense that our experience of place is disappearing in late capitalist society. For examples of this type of work we might look to Christian Nold's 2002 Crowd Compiler. Here the artist generates time-lapse images of crowds in public space to understand the movement of all the individuals in one place over time simultaneously. More typically, these projects resort to the map, using high technology to reproduce the famous diagram created for urban sociologist Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe to trace the daily movements of a young woman living in the XVIe arrondissement of Paris over the course of one year, a map of great importance to the Situationists. Where annotative projects seek to demystify, tracing-based projects typically seek to use high technology to stimulate dying everyday practices such as walking or occupying public space. In this spirit, Jo Walsh and Schulyer Erle's London Free Map marks the paths of participants in the street through paths downloaded from GPS units, thereby locating participants in the world while also producing copyright-free maps of London. .walk, which we cited earlier, is another such project, seeking to get people out of the gallery or conference room and into the streets in order to create a "generative psychogeography."
Social Fiction's invocation of "generative psychogeography" is no accident. Situationism is frequently claimed as a precursor to the locative media movement. That said, it is worth observing that over time Situationism increasingly turned to code. Situationist leader Guy Debord steadily whittled away at art practices, finally leaving the movement as a series of programmatic texts that advocated intervening in the city with only minor modifications, such as adding light switches to street lights so that they could be turned on and off at will and allowing people to wander in subways after they were shut off at night or even abandoning that degree of interventionism and simply turning to a ceaseless repetition of the dérive.3 Locative media, too, is virtually unthinkable except as a question of code. The .walk project represents this reliance on code, turning individuals into processors. Virtually all locative media projects rely on programs for their execution. The resulting product is generally either delivered live to a user in the field who then performs the piece or, alternatively, crystallized as an indexical trace of the event, later displayed at a gallery or on a web site. But if the work itself resides in the pure code itself, what is the difference between locative media and software development?
This is a central question for locative media today, as it is for many contemporary artists today who are using research and development, or at least research, as models. Raised on a steady diet of institutional critique, this generation sees art’s purview as transdisciplinary and eagerly pursues projects that could be classified as research (Center for Land Use Interpretation or Multiplicity) or design and development (Andrea Zittel or Jorge Pardo). In the case of locative media, this means that artists adopt the model of research and development wholesale, looking for corporate sponsorship or even ventura capital. Proboscis, for example received sponsorship from Orange, a 3G cellular network, computer hardware manufacturer Hewlett-Packard and had proprietary geodata donated to it by the Ordnance Survey for their Urban Tapestries project. Blast Theory, a locative media group composed of several London-based avant-garde theatre artists have gained renown for projects such as Can You See Me Now (2001), Uncle Roy All Around You (2003), and I Like Frank (2004), in which they used location-aware mobile mapping devices to coordinate interactions of audience and performers in both real and virtual space. Their performances and installations have been supported throught corporate sponsorship, public arts funding, and through a six-year collaboration with the Mixed Reality Laboratory at the University of Nottingham. The group's own web site claims "Blast Theory has a history of working with corporate clients to deliver innovative marketing strategies," thereby creating "commercial projects that draw global audiences to compelling, high adrenaline interactive experiences. The team of artists and scientists has worked with blue chip clients in the television, apparel and telecoms sectors to launch products, build profile, inspire staff and engage customers." Anthropologist Anne Galloway, who studied Urban Tapestries for her dissertation, has critiqued this model of hybrid arts/researcher and community organizing for not yet having developed a mature sense of accountability, professionalism and ethics.4
The reluctance of many locative media practitioners to position their work as political has led some theorists such as Andreas Broekman (director of the Transmediale Festival in Berlin) to accuse locative media of being the "avant-garde of the 'society of control'," referring to Gilles Deleuze's description of the contemporary regime of power. Broekman suggests that since locative media is fundamentally based on the appropriation of technologies of surveillance and control, its practitioners have a duty to address that fact in that their work. Instead, however, Geert Lovink claims that the movement has turned the media art conference circuit into a "shopping-driven locative spectacle." Media artist Coco Fusco also launched a headlong attack on new media practices associated with networks and mapping, declaring: "It is as if more than four decades of postmodern critique of the Cartesian subject had suddenly evaporated." Fusco minced few words: "In the name of a politics of global connectedness, artists and activists too often substitute an abstract 'connectedness' for any real engagement with people in other places or even in their own locale." Instead, she suggested a return to the kind of art practices made famous at the 1993 Whitney Biennial: "Socially conscious artists and activists, rather than embracing tactics that rely on dreams of omniscience, would do well to examine the history of globalism, networks, dissent and collective actions in order to understand that they are rooted in the geopolitical and cultural margins." Artist-theorist Jordan Crandall would similarly indict the locative project for enslaving us to a new Cartesianism, condemning the "resurgence of temporal and locational specificity witnessed in new surveillance and location-aware navigational technologies." In "Drifting Through the Grid: Psychogeography and Imperial Infrastructure," Brain Holmes discusses locative media's recuperation of Situationism, stating "All too often in contemporary society, aesthetics is politics as decor... the aesthetic form of the dérive is everywhere. But so is the hyper-rationalist grid of Imperial infrastructure. And the questions of social subversion and psychic deconditioning are wide open, unanswered, seemingly lost to our minds, in an era when civil society has been integrated to the military architecture of digital media." According to Holmes, since the United States Army controls GPS satellites, in using them we allow ourselves to be targeted by a global military infrastructure and to be "interpellated into Imperial ideology." These critiques are well-founded, but their antagonist tenor often seems to be an inversion of the boosterist claims made in favor of locative media. There's something peculiar, even comical, in how the movement is, on the one hand "the Next Big Thing" to some, a capitalist apocalypse to others.
But perhaps this shouldn't be so surprising. In "Postmodernism, or the Logic of Late Capitalism," Fredric Jameson, writing of Vincent Van Gogh's painting of peasant shoes, notes how the work simultaneously represents the peasant's brutal world of labor and toil while creating a Utopian gesture, an "act of compensation" through the "glorious materialization of pure colour in oil paint." But so much is a redemptive re-reading of Herbert Marcuse's writings on the affirmative nature of art.5 What makes Jameson's observation important is a third, darker side, this "whole new Utopian realm of the senses" becomes "part of some new division of labour in the body of capital, some new fragmentation of the emergent sensorium which replicates the specializations and divisions of capitalist life at the same time that it seeks in precisely such fragmentation a desperate Utopian compensation for them. The artist's role is only temporary then, and already flawed from the start. But even if Jameson suggests that the process of absorption is inescapable, he also vehemently rejects any suggestion that we should abandon art. In the world of late capital, Jameson argues, the drive to envision Utopia is still important and, above all, the task of cognitive mapping one's place in postmodern hyperspace is crucial, a claim that locative media has certainly embraced. Deleuze, too, agrees, writing expressly of the society of control: "There is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons."
We suggest that locative media offers a conceptual framework by which to examine the certain technological assemblages and their potential social impacts. Unlike net art, produced by a priestly technological class for an elite arts audience, locative media strives, at least rhetorically, to reach a mass audience by attempting to engage consumer technologies, and redirect their power. Today, this is more important than ever. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), we are entering into a society of ubiquitous networked objects. Soon, the ITU observes, objects will be the most prevalent users of the Internet, relentlessly communicating various kinds of data to each other like some flock of Hasbro "emoto-tronic" Furby dolls. What does this turn to what the ITU calls the "Internet of Things" mean, though? Bruno Latour suggests that things are a focus for our time, in particular, a focus that demands the attention of the arts: "'Things' are controversial assemblages of entangled issues, and not simply objects sitting apart from our political passions. The entanglements of things and politics engage activists, artists, politicians, and intellectuals. To assemble this parliament, rhetoric is not enough and nor is eloquence; it requires the use of all the technologies—especially information technology—and the possibility for the arts to re-present anew what are the common stakes."
We can get a sense of what Latour means by this by looking at "MILK," a project by Ieva Auzina and Esther Polak exhibited by Latour in his "Making Things Public" exhibit at ZKM that also won the 2005 Golden Nica at Ars Electronica. The work of a group of Latvian locative media artists, MILK is clearly indebted to more traditional aspects of the movement in that it uses GPS trace-routes. But instead of seeking a phenomenological regrounding of the self, the MILK team traced the path of milk from its origins in the udder of a cow in rural Latvia to a cheese vendor in the Netherlands. To be sure, this project is still more suggestive than fully realized: MILK's artists are not terribly interested in Latour's reading and instead see their work more as a form of romantic landscape art. Nevertheless, MILK suggests a powerful vision of how locative technologies could allow one to more fully understand how products are commodified and distributed through the actions of global trade, thereby making visible the networked society. Here Fusco's anti-mapping diatribe runs aground, for when tied to a materialist vision, the recent turn to maps is among the strongest critiques of globalization available to us. Recognizing this, philosopher Alain Badiou referred to the maps of power drawn by artist Mark Lombardi as "the creation of a new possibility of art and a new vision of the world."
In his book Shaping Things, Bruce Sterling suggests that we détourne the Internet of Things itself to become more fully aware of the ecological role of objects in the world. Sterling coins the neologism "Spimes" to refer to future objects that could be aware of their context and transmit "cradle-to-grave" information about where they have been, where they are and where they are going. Cory Doctorow has called Spimes "the hactivist's ultimate tool—an evidentiary rallying point for making the negative outcomes of industrial practices visible and obvious so that we can redress them.] Similarly, even if it is not so much locative as suggestive of such practices, Natalie Jeremijenko's How Stuff Is Made project is something of a response to Sterling and Latour's theories, comprising a visual encyclopedia of photoessays produced by engineering and design students that to document how objects are manufactured and investigates both the labor conditions of that manufacture and its environmental impact.
By geotagging objects instead of people, and having these objects tell us their stories, we might finally realize a thought experiment expressed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau at the very dawn of industrialization. In Émile, his book on the ideal education of a child, Rousseau wrote of "A problem which another child would never heed [that] would torment Émile half a year." Émile and his instructor would go to an elegant dinner hosted by wealthy people where the two are dazzled by the many guests, servants, dishes, and elegant china. In Émile’s ear the instructor whispers "How many hands do you suppose the things on this table passed through before they got here?" The virus or the Trojan horse, is successfully implanted in the child’s mind and the result is a crisis:
In a moment the mists of excitement have rolled away. He is thinking, considering, calculating, and anxious. The child is philosophizing, while philosophers, excited by wine or perhaps by female society are babbling like children. If he asks questions I decline to answer and put him off to another day. He becomes impatient, he forgets to eat and drink, he longs to get away from table and talk as he pleases. What an object of curiosity, what a text for instruction. Nothing has so far succeeded in corrupting his healthy reason; what will he think of luxury when he finds that every quarter of the globe has been ransacked, that some 2,000,000 men have laboured for years, that many lives have perhaps been sacrificed, and all to furnish him with fine clothes to be worn at midday and laid by in the wardrobe at night.6
In other words, we suggest applying the strategies of locative media to create what Rousseau suggested, an awareness of the genealogy of an object as it is embedded in the matrix of its production. This genealogical vision would embody an awareness of the history that Walter Benjamin reminds us is always there, no matter how suppressed:
[T]he cultural heritage we survey has an origin that we cannot contemplate without horror: it owes its existence not merely to the effort of great geniuses who created it, but to the anonymous toil of their contemporaries. There is not a single artifact of culture that is not simultaneously an artifact of barbarism. And just as no artifact is free of barbarism, so too the process of its reception, by means of which it has been passed on from one recipient to the next, is equally fettered.7
If Spimes and their kin make it possible for us to envision new forms of cognitive mapping, we need to guard against using that mapping to only place ourselves, thereby reducing objects to a subservient position in regard to humans. After all, the ITU's prediction of tens of billions of objects connected to the Internet leaves human users as a distinct second. Here, it may be worthwhile revisiting our standard theoretical frames for interpreting technological fetishism. If Marx considered the object as the result of alienation of the product from its production and, by extension, its origins, Freud understood it as symbolic replacement for an irrecoverable object lost in a primordial trauma. For both Marx and Freud, the aliveness of objects is nothing more than an illusion, object fetishism merely a substitute to avoid. But, as Steven Shaviro notes, the fetish object is always more powerful than what it is thought to stand in for [49]. As an art practice, to date, locative media seems fundamentally tied to discourses of representation centered on a human subject, privileging the experience of the human in space (tracing) and time (annotative). To turn Fusco's argument on its head: in both locative media and much of the criticism launched agains the movement, it is as if more than four decades of postmodern critique of the humanist subject had suddenly evaporated. Even MILK's project is not about milk, but rather about the people involved in the production and distribution of milk as it transforms from Latvian biological fluid to Dutch product.
In contrast, Sterling provides us with a darker, more idiosyncratic vision. Humans don't control Sterling's world of Spimes. On the contrary, it is an unruly object world in which people are, at best, "spime wranglers." At the dawn of the Internet of Things we have to wonder if we aren't entering a world in which the object becomes sentient, thereby finally liberating itself from human bondage. If, in the Enlightenment, we learned that nature—in its role as background to human activity—had been replaced by human second nature, then today we are perhaps at the threshold of a machinic third nature. It is the task of whatever remains of art after the locative turn to get involved in the messy business of this new world of objects, even if the Utopian and critical moments that can emerge as a result are only temporary and contingent.
References
1 Ben Sisario, "Internet Art Survives, But the Boom Is Over," The New York Times, March 31, 2004, Section G, p. 11.
2 Anthony Townsend, "Locative Media Artists in the Contested-Aware City", forthcoming essay, Leonardo, Fall 2006.
3 Simon Sadler, The Situationist City, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998).
4 Anne Galloway, in presentation at the PLAN (Pervasive Locative Arts Network) event at the ICA, February 1st 2004.
5 Herbert Marcuse, "The Affirmative Character of Culture," Negations: Essays in Critical Theory (Boston: Beacon, 1968), 88-133.
6 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile, (New York: Dutton, 1974), 127.
7 Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," Illuminations. Essays and Reflections, (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 256. Modified translation used from Geoffrey Waite, "Truckin’ Under a Pink Sky, Seeing Red," Human Rights/Human Wrongs, ed. Robert Hobbs and Frederick Woodard. (Iowa City: Museum of Art, University of Iowa, 1986), 72.
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Beyond Locative Media
from This is Mobility on January 19, 2006 - 4:23pm
Interesting essay over at Network Publics titled Beyond Locative Media:
In contrast, Sterling provides us with a darker, more idiosyncratic vision. Humans don’t control Sterling’s world of Spimes. On the contrary, it is an unruly object w...
Beyond Locative Media
from Smart Mobs on January 18, 2006 - 3:19pm
Networked Publics explores Beyond Locative Media by Marc Tuters and Kazys Varnelis, a richly referenced and linked essay about the geoweb, location-aware media, art, and critical thinking about the uses and effects of technology: Locative media has been a
Submitted by kvarnelis on January 21, 2006 - 3:38am.
Giles Lane's comments + points of correction
Submitted by mtuters on March 3, 2006 - 5:34pm.
Giles sent these comments + points of correction to me via email. I made adjustments accordingly to the Leonardo piece.
Hi Mark,
I came across your recent essay via smartmobs and noticed a couple of
errors in what you wrote about Urban Tapestries. We didn't use either
GPS or 3G mobile phones/systems in UT, but relied on user-declared
positioning (in one trial we used an experimental cell-id request for
locations which was user triggered not automatic). However we did set
up and run an open access 11-node mesh-WiFi network in Bloomsbury
which covered most of the public spaces in a roughly 1km square area
-- apparently one of the first tested and proven (i.e. working) urban
mesh networks in the UK (perhaps elsewhere too). Certainly it was the
first urban mesh using their kit that Locustworld knew of (whose open
source MeshAP system we used):
http://live.locustworld.com/news.php?mesh=27
You might also be interested to know that of our total cash funding
for the project (just under £124,000 UK pounds) Orange (the only
industry partner who contributed cash) provided £20,000 -- roughly
16% of the cash budget. The public sector contribution to Urban
Tapestries comprised 77% of total cash funds. If you take the total
project cost in terms of self-declared resources contributed by all
partners and funders, then Orange's contribution was just 7%. The
biggest contributor of resources (by their own accounting) was France
Telecom R&D who costed their contribution to the project (programming
the Symbian mobile phone version of UT) at £192,500 -- 52% of the
project budget! However it is probably worth bearing in mind that
Proboscis had a team of 12 people working full and part-time over 18
months, whereas FTRD had about 3 people working for 7 months. All
these figures and detailed testimony on the project and its outcomes
are available in the 3 final reports on UT we published back in June
2005:
http://urbantapestries.net/weblog/archives/000130.html
The point of the above figures (particularly the cash ones) is to
reiterate that UT was predominantly a project funded by the public
sector that was run by a non-profit arts organization with some
assistance from industry. We made a point of sharing all our research
results with the public from the start (and, where necessary,
protected the individual contributions of participants in community
workshops and activities). I'm pretty confident that our
collaborative and transdisciplinary approach to the project enabled a
robust internal critique of the project and methodologies during the
process, including an ethnographic study which was published by the
London School of Economics last year:
http://urbantapestries.net/weblog/archives/000120.html
Lastly, I think there might be some further debate over the
interpretation of Anne's presentation last year at PLAN -- Nick West
and I had some correspondence with Anne about her presentation that
was on her blog as comments (these now seem to have been lost).
However I think I recall her saying that she wasn't trying to suggest
that the arts projects had a less ethical or accountable approach,
but that the mechanics of corporations meant that the corporate
projects had a more formal and structured one. Might be interesting
to ask Anne again for clarification?
best wishes,
Giles
reply
World's First Cellular Phone 3D Navigation Service
location based services
ASIA Japan : KDDI and Okinawa Cellular are pleased to announce the world's first [1] real cellular phone 3D navigation service. "3D Navi", the new service which displays intersections and landmarks in three-dimensional images, is produced by KDDI in association with NAVITIME JAPAN CO.,LTD. for the pedestrian "EZ Navi Walk", and will be available from later April this year.
Following the "EZ Navi Walk" voice guide on the way to one's destination, pedestrians will pass through various intersections or locations, and at each, "3D Navi" displays images of the surrounding scenery, such as buildings and landmarks. As real maps in three dimensions are displayed, users can enjoy a more comprehensible service, particularly at complex intersections or locations, which are not easily understood with a standard map alone.
ZENRIN CO., LTD. and GEO Technical Laboratory Co., Ltd. provide the data used in "3D Navi's" 3D map images.
location based services
ASIA Japan : KDDI and Okinawa Cellular are pleased to announce the world's first [1] real cellular phone 3D navigation service. "3D Navi", the new service which displays intersections and landmarks in three-dimensional images, is produced by KDDI in association with NAVITIME JAPAN CO.,LTD. for the pedestrian "EZ Navi Walk", and will be available from later April this year.
Following the "EZ Navi Walk" voice guide on the way to one's destination, pedestrians will pass through various intersections or locations, and at each, "3D Navi" displays images of the surrounding scenery, such as buildings and landmarks. As real maps in three dimensions are displayed, users can enjoy a more comprehensible service, particularly at complex intersections or locations, which are not easily understood with a standard map alone.
ZENRIN CO., LTD. and GEO Technical Laboratory Co., Ltd. provide the data used in "3D Navi's" 3D map images.
United Power Implements GO! Sync® (Redline)
location based services
Carlsbad, CA, March 30, 2006: United Power, one of the fastest growing electric cooperatives in the United States, has implemented the award-winning GO! Sync® (Redline) mapping application to deliver enterprise GIS data to field workers across its service area. Located in Brighton, Colorado, the cooperative serves more than 60.000 customers over 16 cities located across an area of 900 square miles along the north central range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
Recognizing the considerable productivity gains that can be achieved by deploying a Mobile GIS, United Power selected the Geospatial Solutions Division of Tadpole Technology Group to supply software that would improve workflow efficiencies by introducing fit for purpose GIS into the field operations. By leveraging ESRI's ArcGIS® Engine software, GO! Sync (Redline) enables crews to view, verify and capture geospatial information on tablets or laptops with minimal to no training.
"Deploying an enterprise Mobile GIS has been a goal of United Power for several years," stated Diego Portillo, GIS Coordinator of United Power "We selected GO! Sync (Redline) because it not only allows users to view and redline enterprise data, but it enables field workers to seamlessly share their field sketches, upload information to the enterprise and make use of field specific tools such as tracing, custom searches, navigation and routing. The flexibility of this software allows us to easily customize the application and thus tailor it to our needs."
In addition to offering standard mapping tools and sketching functionality, GO! Sync (Redline) provides a framework within which an organization can begin to deploy a mobile GIS system designed specifically for its own operational and technical environment. This has allowed United Power to add its own custom tools, such as a grid locator and deploy and manage the application over a range of network connections as the system evolves.
About GO! Sync®
GO! Sync is The Mobile GIS StandardTM ideal for organizations such as utilities, municipalities and cooperatives with field crews or mobile and casual users. GO! Sync leverages investments in ESRI's ArcGIS® software to extend the power of enterprise GIS to the field. About the Geospatial Solutions Division of Tadpole Technology Group The Geospatial Solutions Division is a leading supplier of geospatial applications and technology for the office-based and mobile user.
location based services
Carlsbad, CA, March 30, 2006: United Power, one of the fastest growing electric cooperatives in the United States, has implemented the award-winning GO! Sync® (Redline) mapping application to deliver enterprise GIS data to field workers across its service area. Located in Brighton, Colorado, the cooperative serves more than 60.000 customers over 16 cities located across an area of 900 square miles along the north central range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
Recognizing the considerable productivity gains that can be achieved by deploying a Mobile GIS, United Power selected the Geospatial Solutions Division of Tadpole Technology Group to supply software that would improve workflow efficiencies by introducing fit for purpose GIS into the field operations. By leveraging ESRI's ArcGIS® Engine software, GO! Sync (Redline) enables crews to view, verify and capture geospatial information on tablets or laptops with minimal to no training.
"Deploying an enterprise Mobile GIS has been a goal of United Power for several years," stated Diego Portillo, GIS Coordinator of United Power "We selected GO! Sync (Redline) because it not only allows users to view and redline enterprise data, but it enables field workers to seamlessly share their field sketches, upload information to the enterprise and make use of field specific tools such as tracing, custom searches, navigation and routing. The flexibility of this software allows us to easily customize the application and thus tailor it to our needs."
In addition to offering standard mapping tools and sketching functionality, GO! Sync (Redline) provides a framework within which an organization can begin to deploy a mobile GIS system designed specifically for its own operational and technical environment. This has allowed United Power to add its own custom tools, such as a grid locator and deploy and manage the application over a range of network connections as the system evolves.
About GO! Sync®
GO! Sync is The Mobile GIS StandardTM ideal for organizations such as utilities, municipalities and cooperatives with field crews or mobile and casual users. GO! Sync leverages investments in ESRI's ArcGIS® software to extend the power of enterprise GIS to the field. About the Geospatial Solutions Division of Tadpole Technology Group The Geospatial Solutions Division is a leading supplier of geospatial applications and technology for the office-based and mobile user.
New York School Districts Install GPS Tracking Systems in Buses
location based services
Cutting-edge technology is making it easier for transportation directors to keep track of some school buses in New York. With the help of a global-positioning satellite (GPS) system installed in each of the school buses for a pilot testing program, school officials can locate exactly where their buses are at all times.
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IC Corporation introduced the pilot program with 10 New York school districts to integrate a GPS - or telematics solution - into their buses. International Truck and Engine, IC Corporation's parent company, developed the telematics solution - known as AWARE Vehicle Intelligence - to help improve overall school transportation operations through better maintenance efficiencies and immediate knowledge of each vehicle's location.
The new system can keep track of the location of each school bus at all times and monitors the various systems on the bus, such as checking how often its flashing red stop lights are activated. This provides a real-time record of school bus stops, which is important to school officials when it comes to knowing the exact times when school buses are making stops. Access through a password-protected Web site gives school officials secure access of the location and performance of their school bus fleet.
In the New York pilot program, supervisors managing the district transportation operations are pleased with the new innovation and are discovering a number of potential uses and advantages for AWARE in school buses.
"Security is its greatest benefit," said Chuck Tanzer, fleet manager for the Saratoga Springs City School District. "By knowing where the bus is, if there is any kind of incident, I know where it is and can better determine how best to support the situation. You know immediately if there has been an accident or hijacking so that help can be dispatched that much quicker. That's even more important since 9/11."
In addition to tracking a bus's real-time location, AWARE also helps manage such operating costs as fuel costs. AWARE combines remote vehicle performance monitoring, diagnostics, service and vehicle positioning into a single Web-based tool, allowing school administrators access to the most updated information on their bus fleet. It provides maintenance professionals with an easier way to diagnose any issues with a bus, and it provides parents and school officials with peace-of-mind knowing that the buses are being monitored continually.
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(Ads by Google)"Tracking fuel efficiency was accurate and easy, and today that is one of my biggest issues since my budget won't change because the prices do," said Robert Zeller, transportation supervisor at Warwick Valley Central School District.
One example from the pilot program provides a vivid illustration of how AWARE can make a difference. A New York school transportation director one day checked via computer on the location of one of his school buses outfitted with AWARE and discovered the bus was 45 miles away in a different city.
Unaware the bus had an assignment that day, he called the dispatcher who claimed the vehicle was in the bus parking lot. As it turns out, a substitute driver mistakenly had taken the wrong bus on a field trip and AWARE was able to pinpoint its exact location.
AWARE also features a "geofence" capability that allows school officials to designate a virtual boundary for school buses. If a bus leaves that boundary, an immediate alert can be sent to transportation officials via e-mail, cell phone text message or pager to let them know that a bus has left its operating area.
"School officials need to know where their school buses are at all times," said Dan Lindberg, vice president and general manager of AWARE Vehicle Intelligence at International. "When those school buses leave the lot each day with AWARE, school officials are able to track their location. AWARE also monitors performance and diagnoses maintenance issues remotely. This helps deliver greater driver, passenger and bus safety.
"School administrators also will detect an impact on the bottom line because the system helps reduce fuel and maintenance costs. Over the long run, AWARE can help pay for itself with the financial return on investment and overall peace-of-mind."
Copyright 2006 by Space Daily, Distributed United Press International
location based services
Cutting-edge technology is making it easier for transportation directors to keep track of some school buses in New York. With the help of a global-positioning satellite (GPS) system installed in each of the school buses for a pilot testing program, school officials can locate exactly where their buses are at all times.
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IC Corporation introduced the pilot program with 10 New York school districts to integrate a GPS - or telematics solution - into their buses. International Truck and Engine, IC Corporation's parent company, developed the telematics solution - known as AWARE Vehicle Intelligence - to help improve overall school transportation operations through better maintenance efficiencies and immediate knowledge of each vehicle's location.
The new system can keep track of the location of each school bus at all times and monitors the various systems on the bus, such as checking how often its flashing red stop lights are activated. This provides a real-time record of school bus stops, which is important to school officials when it comes to knowing the exact times when school buses are making stops. Access through a password-protected Web site gives school officials secure access of the location and performance of their school bus fleet.
In the New York pilot program, supervisors managing the district transportation operations are pleased with the new innovation and are discovering a number of potential uses and advantages for AWARE in school buses.
"Security is its greatest benefit," said Chuck Tanzer, fleet manager for the Saratoga Springs City School District. "By knowing where the bus is, if there is any kind of incident, I know where it is and can better determine how best to support the situation. You know immediately if there has been an accident or hijacking so that help can be dispatched that much quicker. That's even more important since 9/11."
In addition to tracking a bus's real-time location, AWARE also helps manage such operating costs as fuel costs. AWARE combines remote vehicle performance monitoring, diagnostics, service and vehicle positioning into a single Web-based tool, allowing school administrators access to the most updated information on their bus fleet. It provides maintenance professionals with an easier way to diagnose any issues with a bus, and it provides parents and school officials with peace-of-mind knowing that the buses are being monitored continually.
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(Ads by Google)"Tracking fuel efficiency was accurate and easy, and today that is one of my biggest issues since my budget won't change because the prices do," said Robert Zeller, transportation supervisor at Warwick Valley Central School District.
One example from the pilot program provides a vivid illustration of how AWARE can make a difference. A New York school transportation director one day checked via computer on the location of one of his school buses outfitted with AWARE and discovered the bus was 45 miles away in a different city.
Unaware the bus had an assignment that day, he called the dispatcher who claimed the vehicle was in the bus parking lot. As it turns out, a substitute driver mistakenly had taken the wrong bus on a field trip and AWARE was able to pinpoint its exact location.
AWARE also features a "geofence" capability that allows school officials to designate a virtual boundary for school buses. If a bus leaves that boundary, an immediate alert can be sent to transportation officials via e-mail, cell phone text message or pager to let them know that a bus has left its operating area.
"School officials need to know where their school buses are at all times," said Dan Lindberg, vice president and general manager of AWARE Vehicle Intelligence at International. "When those school buses leave the lot each day with AWARE, school officials are able to track their location. AWARE also monitors performance and diagnoses maintenance issues remotely. This helps deliver greater driver, passenger and bus safety.
"School administrators also will detect an impact on the bottom line because the system helps reduce fuel and maintenance costs. Over the long run, AWARE can help pay for itself with the financial return on investment and overall peace-of-mind."
Copyright 2006 by Space Daily, Distributed United Press International
IceBurn's Lair - Tim's GMapper
location based services
DIGG EFFECT!
Sorry about my crappy bandwidth... i guess if you can read this you're just lucky :-) 03.28.06
If you just want so the end result, click on one of the links below (if you haven't tried GMaps 'hybrid' you might try that as well), if you want to know more about the 'how' part, read on.
Examples
PKI
UNO
DC (night)
DC (day)
The concept of MetaData (loosely defined as data about data - notwithstanding the semantic argument of data vs information) has existed for quite some time. Not long ago I discovered that Exif (data about pictures) had a field for GPS coordinates. So I set on my quest to figure out what these fields could be used for...or more accurately what actually used these fields.
My search was not particularly fruitful (if you have better luck, let me know) and only came up with a 'low-quality' (3 Mega Pixel) Ricoh with an add in Compact Flash GPS that sticks somewhat awkwardly out of the bottom of the Camera, a similar Pentax and a handful of Nikon 'high-end' digial SLRs. Recently Nikon started shipping an 'entry level' prosumer camera called the D200, which joins the D1H, D1X, and D2X as cameras that support GPS input. Nikon also offers a GPS cable for about $50-99 USD.
For some reason I really wanted to find some data that Canon also supported GPS input, but could not find any confirmation of this anywhere (again if this is inaccurate, let me know).
Further reasearch led to Red Hen Systems who makes an adapter for Garmin GPS' to mount right on the Hot Shoe ontop of the camera. This takes the place of the Nikon Cable, and keeps you from having to tote the GPS around seperately. Unfortuately this does not power the GPS unit itself, so you'll have to unmount and change the batteries in the GPS when needed. If interested call them up, they're realy nice people.
I finally decided on the Nikon D200 for a number of reasons, and so far really like it. The tagging of GPS data into the Exif of each picture is a really nice novelty for me but has obvious applications like Civil Surveying and Military Applications. I would like to have a nice section here about all the complicated things I did to get the GPS data to sync with the camera and how to get the camera to embed the data into the Exif, but the setup I picked (D200, D2x-GPS, Geko 301) just plain worked(tm). Didn't have to change a setting much less make a cable or anything.
The Sales folks as Red Hen informated me that the adapter would come with some sort of mapping software, and when it didn't I called them up and was informed that it's 'not quite ready' and they'd email be about beta testing (evidently the sales teams information didn't quite jive with the software team). So I set out to create my own, and as it turns out, with only a Image::ExifTool, the Google Maps API and a little over a hundred lines of PERL, I have a script that given a directory of images, will creat the GMaps htm, the associated XML for the GPS points and extract thumbnails from the picutres themselves. All that's left is to upload everything to a web directory!
GeoCaching has been around for some time, what makes this intersting is that it's done automatically with metadata. AutoGeoCaching?
Source Code:
You can download GMapper.zip which is the perl used to create the xml, and the php/html used to display/parse it.
Available by request, the Blue Icons(1-99) I use on my GMaps. If anyone has a lightweight way to have a generic blank icon and overlay the number on top (instead of unique graphics for each number), I'd be very interested.
To Do:
Figure out why my thumbnails have black bands at the top/bottom
Add id's to each google marker (ie A,B,C etc)
Have the map initially 'auto-zoom' to the relavent area
Create Marking graphics from 26-100 (or find a way to auto overlay the number onto a blank marker)
Add more information (sat accuracy / time taken) to the message box for each thumbnail
Log:
2006.03.09 - Initially put page up promised source 'soon'
2006.03.23 - changed to PHP, added 'debug' POST variable, reformatted the page, numbered markers...
2006.03.24 - finally posted some source code
2006.03.26 - post a zip of the blue icons I use for my markers and updated version of GMap.php (IE icon numbering bug)
location based services
DIGG EFFECT!
Sorry about my crappy bandwidth... i guess if you can read this you're just lucky :-) 03.28.06
If you just want so the end result, click on one of the links below (if you haven't tried GMaps 'hybrid' you might try that as well), if you want to know more about the 'how' part, read on.
Examples
PKI
UNO
DC (night)
DC (day)
The concept of MetaData (loosely defined as data about data - notwithstanding the semantic argument of data vs information) has existed for quite some time. Not long ago I discovered that Exif (data about pictures) had a field for GPS coordinates. So I set on my quest to figure out what these fields could be used for...or more accurately what actually used these fields.
My search was not particularly fruitful (if you have better luck, let me know) and only came up with a 'low-quality' (3 Mega Pixel) Ricoh with an add in Compact Flash GPS that sticks somewhat awkwardly out of the bottom of the Camera, a similar Pentax and a handful of Nikon 'high-end' digial SLRs. Recently Nikon started shipping an 'entry level' prosumer camera called the D200, which joins the D1H, D1X, and D2X as cameras that support GPS input. Nikon also offers a GPS cable for about $50-99 USD.
For some reason I really wanted to find some data that Canon also supported GPS input, but could not find any confirmation of this anywhere (again if this is inaccurate, let me know).
Further reasearch led to Red Hen Systems who makes an adapter for Garmin GPS' to mount right on the Hot Shoe ontop of the camera. This takes the place of the Nikon Cable, and keeps you from having to tote the GPS around seperately. Unfortuately this does not power the GPS unit itself, so you'll have to unmount and change the batteries in the GPS when needed. If interested call them up, they're realy nice people.
I finally decided on the Nikon D200 for a number of reasons, and so far really like it. The tagging of GPS data into the Exif of each picture is a really nice novelty for me but has obvious applications like Civil Surveying and Military Applications. I would like to have a nice section here about all the complicated things I did to get the GPS data to sync with the camera and how to get the camera to embed the data into the Exif, but the setup I picked (D200, D2x-GPS, Geko 301) just plain worked(tm). Didn't have to change a setting much less make a cable or anything.
The Sales folks as Red Hen informated me that the adapter would come with some sort of mapping software, and when it didn't I called them up and was informed that it's 'not quite ready' and they'd email be about beta testing (evidently the sales teams information didn't quite jive with the software team). So I set out to create my own, and as it turns out, with only a Image::ExifTool, the Google Maps API and a little over a hundred lines of PERL, I have a script that given a directory of images, will creat the GMaps htm, the associated XML for the GPS points and extract thumbnails from the picutres themselves. All that's left is to upload everything to a web directory!
GeoCaching has been around for some time, what makes this intersting is that it's done automatically with metadata. AutoGeoCaching?
Source Code:
You can download GMapper.zip which is the perl used to create the xml, and the php/html used to display/parse it.
Available by request, the Blue Icons(1-99) I use on my GMaps. If anyone has a lightweight way to have a generic blank icon and overlay the number on top (instead of unique graphics for each number), I'd be very interested.
To Do:
Figure out why my thumbnails have black bands at the top/bottom
Add id's to each google marker (ie A,B,C etc)
Have the map initially 'auto-zoom' to the relavent area
Create Marking graphics from 26-100 (or find a way to auto overlay the number onto a blank marker)
Add more information (sat accuracy / time taken) to the message box for each thumbnail
Log:
2006.03.09 - Initially put page up promised source 'soon'
2006.03.23 - changed to PHP, added 'debug' POST variable, reformatted the page, numbered markers...
2006.03.24 - finally posted some source code
2006.03.26 - post a zip of the blue icons I use for my markers and updated version of GMap.php (IE icon numbering bug)
Google Maps Mania: Build your own Google Photo Map with a GPS-equipped camera
location based services
= Easy Photo Mapping
Tim Vidas has a great description of how he was able to equip his Ricoh D200 with a GPS unit to easily Google Map pictures he takes with it. He explains that "The tagging of GPS data into the Exif of each picture is a really nice novelty for me". More from his How-To:
The Sales folks as Red Hen informated me that the adapter would come with some sort of mapping software, and when it didn't I called them up and was informed that it's 'not quite ready' and they'd email be about beta testing (evidently the sales teams information didn't quite jive with the software team). So I set out to create my own, and as it turns out, with only a Image::ExifTool, the Google Maps API and a little over a hundred lines of PERL, I have a script that given a directory of images, will create the GMaps htm, the associated XML for the GPS points and extract thumbnails from the pictures themselves. All that's left is to upload everything to a web directory! [Read More..]
On his page he has posted the source code for you to be able to do this yourself, and even makes his custom map pins available to anyone that wants to use them!
A possible way to take this a step further would be to somehow tie this into a PocketPC with a mobile data plan on it that would allow you to wirelessly transfer these photos the second they are taken to a server that automatically Google-maps them with this app running. This way you could snap photos and have them instantly viewable for people looking at your real-time Google Photo-Map. It will only be a matter of time before this is possible. Camera companies like Ricoh or Canon could do this in partnership with mobile carriers, or perhaps mobile phone handset manufacturers could just add the GPS feature to picture phones and mobile carriers could just build a service offering around it? Fun stuff. I can't wait for this all to be a little easier to do.
[Via Digg]
posted by Morpeth @ 3:19 PM 1 comments links to this post
1 Comments:
At 9:32 PM, Greg said...
You don't even need a GPS-enabled camera. If you have a GPS and a digital camera, that's all you need. A group at Microsoft Research has a free program that will do what you need. Go here:
http://wwmx.org/Download.aspx
and get the WWMX Location Stamper utility. That program reads in your photos and the saved track log from your GPS, and inserts the geotag information into your photos. Basically it says, "Your photo says it was taken at 3:18, and your track log says that at 3:18, you were standing at _____". It does the cross reference, and inserts the data invisibly into your photos just as if they had been taken with a GPS-enabled camera. Very cool. I wish I'd thought of that years ago. I've got tons of vacation photos or hiking photos that I now can't remember where they were taken.
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location based services
= Easy Photo Mapping
Tim Vidas has a great description of how he was able to equip his Ricoh D200 with a GPS unit to easily Google Map pictures he takes with it. He explains that "The tagging of GPS data into the Exif of each picture is a really nice novelty for me". More from his How-To:
The Sales folks as Red Hen informated me that the adapter would come with some sort of mapping software, and when it didn't I called them up and was informed that it's 'not quite ready' and they'd email be about beta testing (evidently the sales teams information didn't quite jive with the software team). So I set out to create my own, and as it turns out, with only a Image::ExifTool, the Google Maps API and a little over a hundred lines of PERL, I have a script that given a directory of images, will create the GMaps htm, the associated XML for the GPS points and extract thumbnails from the pictures themselves. All that's left is to upload everything to a web directory! [Read More..]
On his page he has posted the source code for you to be able to do this yourself, and even makes his custom map pins available to anyone that wants to use them!
A possible way to take this a step further would be to somehow tie this into a PocketPC with a mobile data plan on it that would allow you to wirelessly transfer these photos the second they are taken to a server that automatically Google-maps them with this app running. This way you could snap photos and have them instantly viewable for people looking at your real-time Google Photo-Map. It will only be a matter of time before this is possible. Camera companies like Ricoh or Canon could do this in partnership with mobile carriers, or perhaps mobile phone handset manufacturers could just add the GPS feature to picture phones and mobile carriers could just build a service offering around it? Fun stuff. I can't wait for this all to be a little easier to do.
[Via Digg]
posted by Morpeth @ 3:19 PM 1 comments links to this post
1 Comments:
At 9:32 PM, Greg said...
You don't even need a GPS-enabled camera. If you have a GPS and a digital camera, that's all you need. A group at Microsoft Research has a free program that will do what you need. Go here:
http://wwmx.org/Download.aspx
and get the WWMX Location Stamper utility. That program reads in your photos and the saved track log from your GPS, and inserts the geotag information into your photos. Basically it says, "Your photo says it was taken at 3:18, and your track log says that at 3:18, you were standing at _____". It does the cross reference, and inserts the data invisibly into your photos just as if they had been taken with a GPS-enabled camera. Very cool. I wish I'd thought of that years ago. I've got tons of vacation photos or hiking photos that I now can't remember where they were taken.
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<$BlogBacklinkSnippet$>
posted by <$BlogBacklinkAuthor$> @ <$BlogBacklinkDateTime$>
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In Western Europe Critical Mass in the 3G Market Will Occur at the End of 2007, whereas Mass Market will not Happen until 2010
location based services
In Western Europe Critical Mass in the 3G Market Will Occur at the End of 2007, whereas Mass Market will not Happen until 2010
DUBLIN, Ireland --(Business Wire)-- March 31, 2006 -- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c33414) has announced the addition of The Rise of 3G in Europe - Case Study: Ireland to their offering.
In Western Europe critical mass (i.e., 20 percent of the installed base owning 3G phones) will occur at the end of 2007, whereas mass market (i.e., the 50-percent mark) will not happen until 2010. With comparatively more dynamic and competitive markets, countries such as the UK, Sweden, and Italy will equal or pass this mark by 2009.
Through aggressive pricing strategies 3 has captured 74% of the European 3G market.
It is predicted that 3G will reach mass market in 2010. Subscribers of 3G will grow from 9.6 million in March 2005 to 184 million by 2010.
In total across Ireland, Comreg has awarded four 3G licences to Vodafone, 3, O2 and Smart Telecom. The main 3G services on offer include video calling, high speed picture messaging, location based services, mobile TV, high speed downloads, email and high speed internet access.
Mobile operators must increase their share of non-SMS data revenues to recoup heavy investments in 3G. Mobile operators will thus have increasing difficulty relying on SMS as a cash cow, while the 3G market matures. They must instead look at other messaging and premium data services.
Key topics covered:
-- Outline
-- Mass Market Penetrations
-- The European 3G Market
-- The Irish 3G Market
-- A Maturing Market
-- Conclusions
For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c33414
[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
location based services
In Western Europe Critical Mass in the 3G Market Will Occur at the End of 2007, whereas Mass Market will not Happen until 2010
DUBLIN, Ireland --(Business Wire)-- March 31, 2006 -- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c33414) has announced the addition of The Rise of 3G in Europe - Case Study: Ireland to their offering.
In Western Europe critical mass (i.e., 20 percent of the installed base owning 3G phones) will occur at the end of 2007, whereas mass market (i.e., the 50-percent mark) will not happen until 2010. With comparatively more dynamic and competitive markets, countries such as the UK, Sweden, and Italy will equal or pass this mark by 2009.
Through aggressive pricing strategies 3 has captured 74% of the European 3G market.
It is predicted that 3G will reach mass market in 2010. Subscribers of 3G will grow from 9.6 million in March 2005 to 184 million by 2010.
In total across Ireland, Comreg has awarded four 3G licences to Vodafone, 3, O2 and Smart Telecom. The main 3G services on offer include video calling, high speed picture messaging, location based services, mobile TV, high speed downloads, email and high speed internet access.
Mobile operators must increase their share of non-SMS data revenues to recoup heavy investments in 3G. Mobile operators will thus have increasing difficulty relying on SMS as a cash cow, while the 3G market matures. They must instead look at other messaging and premium data services.
Key topics covered:
-- Outline
-- Mass Market Penetrations
-- The European 3G Market
-- The Irish 3G Market
-- A Maturing Market
-- Conclusions
For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c33414
[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Navizon - Peer-to-Peer Wireless Positioning
location based services
Navizon's popular wireless positioning engine now available for developers
NEW YORK, April 3 -- Mexens Technology announced today the release of the Application Programming Interface (API) of the Navizon (http://www.navizon.com ) software. The API will make available the positioning engine behind Navizon, allowing other applications to make use of its dynamic geo-positioning network.
The innovative Navizon API works by triangulating signal measurements from cellular towers and Wi-Fi access points. Once a map of the wireless landscape for a certain area has been created with a GPS device, the Navizon API uses this data to offer a software-only positioning system for wireless devices, completely independent of carriers.
"The Navizon API will make our dynamic positioning engine available for other applications," said Cyril Houri, founder of Mexens Technology. "This API will work as a virtual GPS for software developers that would like to take advantage of the information compiled within the Navizon network to make their mobile applications geo-aware."
In addition, Navizon adds revolutionary new features that allow members groundbreaking new ways of sharing information. These include the Tracker and Geotag.
-- The Tracker allows members within a group to share their location with
other group members on an opt-in basis. This feature has been extremely
popular for businesses who want to track assets such as vehicles.
-- The Geotag allows members to post any information based upon a specific
geographic location. When other members will drive or walk nearby, they
will be notified of this post and the information it contains.
"Navizon has become a fantastic tool," said Houri. "This API will allow other software makers the opportunity to take advantage of our dynamic positioning system for their own applications."
Source: Mexens Technology
................................................................................................................................................................................
CONTACT:
226 East 54th Street
Suite 308
New York, NY
10022
USA
Email:
location based services
Navizon's popular wireless positioning engine now available for developers
NEW YORK, April 3 -- Mexens Technology announced today the release of the Application Programming Interface (API) of the Navizon (http://www.navizon.com ) software. The API will make available the positioning engine behind Navizon, allowing other applications to make use of its dynamic geo-positioning network.
The innovative Navizon API works by triangulating signal measurements from cellular towers and Wi-Fi access points. Once a map of the wireless landscape for a certain area has been created with a GPS device, the Navizon API uses this data to offer a software-only positioning system for wireless devices, completely independent of carriers.
"The Navizon API will make our dynamic positioning engine available for other applications," said Cyril Houri, founder of Mexens Technology. "This API will work as a virtual GPS for software developers that would like to take advantage of the information compiled within the Navizon network to make their mobile applications geo-aware."
In addition, Navizon adds revolutionary new features that allow members groundbreaking new ways of sharing information. These include the Tracker and Geotag.
-- The Tracker allows members within a group to share their location with
other group members on an opt-in basis. This feature has been extremely
popular for businesses who want to track assets such as vehicles.
-- The Geotag allows members to post any information based upon a specific
geographic location. When other members will drive or walk nearby, they
will be notified of this post and the information it contains.
"Navizon has become a fantastic tool," said Houri. "This API will allow other software makers the opportunity to take advantage of our dynamic positioning system for their own applications."
Source: Mexens Technology
................................................................................................................................................................................
CONTACT:
226 East 54th Street
Suite 308
New York, NY
10022
USA
Email:
Navizon API now available
location based services
Navizon API now available
Good news for software developers and location based services providers: the Navizon API is now available!
It is now possible to use the power of Navizon's positioning engine in third party applications.
The API can work as a "virtual GPS" for any Windows Mobile applications (for Pocket PCs and Smartphones).
Hopefully, we'll see all sorts of new cool applications florish thanks to this API. Stay tuned...
April 02, 2006 in Announcement | Permalink
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TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/4584037
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Navizon API now available:
location based services
Navizon API now available
Good news for software developers and location based services providers: the Navizon API is now available!
It is now possible to use the power of Navizon's positioning engine in third party applications.
The API can work as a "virtual GPS" for any Windows Mobile applications (for Pocket PCs and Smartphones).
Hopefully, we'll see all sorts of new cool applications florish thanks to this API. Stay tuned...
April 02, 2006 in Announcement | Permalink
TrackBack
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http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/4584037
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Navizon API now available:
Big Brother's on the phone
location based services
GPS chips in cell phones can do a heck of a lot more than help 911 workers locate you in an emergency, as Jim Fuentes' son Eric discovered while zooming down a highway at 85 mph.
The elder Fuentes received an SMS "speed alert" on his phone telling him his son was booking it. The same alert was available via an e-mail or on a Web site,
And there's more to this system, known as "Whereabouts, Family Tracking and Navigation" developed by Aurora-based Clarity Communication Systems Inc., a start-up founded by Fuentes and seven other former Lucent wireless software engineers in 1998.
Whereabouts, now being tested by a Midwestern wireless company, also enables parents to set up "geo-zones," which send out alerts when the phone enters or leaves a defined area. Fuentes said the system, for example, can be used to see if a child is home in time for curfew.
Subscribers can use Whereabouts to check on the location of others on a phone list, whether stationary or mobile. A button can be pushed to tell other subscribers when a user has arrived at a location. And the phone has an SOS button that can be used to call for help.
Lisa Carter, vice president of corporate development and marketing at Clarity, agreed the tracking system potentially could compromise some users' privacy. "We can't control how the phones are used," she said.
Within a family, she said minors provided with phones by their parents would have to comply with the tracking system. However, she said Clarity is developing a "privacy manager" that would require users to request or refuse tracking.
Carter said phone users would quickly realize they are being tracked because the phone interface has a map showing where users are located.
Carter said other products on the market would be more easily used for spying than cell phones that need to be regularly recharged.
Clarity is part of the emerging market of location-based services built on basic location information available on most cell phones to help 911 operators.
Robert Gourdine, director of marketing of the North American Internet & Wireless Business Unit of Chicago-based Navteq, the leading provider of digital map data, said there are "huge business opportunities" for companies such as Clarity that develop location-based services.
"The industry is moving beyond location and navigation. You can overlay any type of service on top of location information, and create something new," he said.
Clarity found its way into the location-based services business as a result of developing gear for Lucent aimed at helping wireless phone companies locate phones as required under the federal mandate for 911 services on cell phones.
Leo Modica, Clarity's principal engineer, said "We discovered to our surprise how accurate the GPS devices were on cell phones. They were accurate in the best case to within 5 to 10 feet."
Fuentes said cellular companies were open to new ideas since the new location systems required billions of dollars of investment and would only be used for 911 calls on average once every two years per customer.
Clarity got into the location business in early 2003 with Navigator, a GPS-based service on a cell phone, which provides directions, points of interests and turn-by-turn, voiced-guided navigation. The service is available for Nextel customers for a $9.99 activation fee plus $6.95 per month. For more information, go to www.way-to-go.net.
Navigator morphed into Whereabouts, which last year won an award for personal security in Navteq's Global LBS Challenge, a competition designed to encourage location technology innovation and reward it with cash prizes and Navteq software licenses. Clarity is a semi-finalist in the business applications category in this year's LBS Challenge with its Where2Talk product, which combines Clarity's push-to-talk technology with location services.
Subscribers who use Where2Talk can see current locations of other users on a contact list. The service has a PC-based Dispatch Console that maps a team, and enables a dispatcher to contact team members based on their location, pushing them directions or other information onto their handsets.
Bill Jenkins, vice president of business development at Clarity, said Where2Talk is aimed at builders, delivery services and other companies with "deployed work forces," but could be used by families and friends to keep track of each other.
hwolinsky@suntimes.com
Lane Tech grad's route to Clarity
Jim Fuentes, president of Clarity Communication Systems Inc., followed a circuitous path to the wireless business, from Lane Tech High School to working on the Stealth fighter and then developing cellular phone systems for Lucent.
Fuentes, 50, grew up on the Northwest Side, and then earned degrees in aeronautical engineering and computer science from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. Out of school, he worked on the Stealth fighter for Lockheed's Skunkworks in California and Possumworks in Georgia. He worked on defense projects for Northrup in Rolling Meadows before joining Bell Labs here in 1989.
Eight years ago, he and some Lucent colleagues started Clarity as a custom developer of services for the wireless industry.
Friends and family kicked $500,000 into the bootstrap outfit. Clarity attracted more technical talent from Lucent, which offered buyouts to older workers in 2001. Clarity now has 75 employees, primarily in Aurora, up from 55 a year ago.
Fuentes said the privately held company is "highly profitable," but doesn't disclose revenues.
"The Chicago area is ideal for a company like ours. Chicago has big universities, O'Hare and central location," he said. "Too many people willing to take risks go to the Silicon Valley."
--Howard Wolinsky
location based services
GPS chips in cell phones can do a heck of a lot more than help 911 workers locate you in an emergency, as Jim Fuentes' son Eric discovered while zooming down a highway at 85 mph.
The elder Fuentes received an SMS "speed alert" on his phone telling him his son was booking it. The same alert was available via an e-mail or on a Web site,
And there's more to this system, known as "Whereabouts, Family Tracking and Navigation" developed by Aurora-based Clarity Communication Systems Inc., a start-up founded by Fuentes and seven other former Lucent wireless software engineers in 1998.
Whereabouts, now being tested by a Midwestern wireless company, also enables parents to set up "geo-zones," which send out alerts when the phone enters or leaves a defined area. Fuentes said the system, for example, can be used to see if a child is home in time for curfew.
Subscribers can use Whereabouts to check on the location of others on a phone list, whether stationary or mobile. A button can be pushed to tell other subscribers when a user has arrived at a location. And the phone has an SOS button that can be used to call for help.
Lisa Carter, vice president of corporate development and marketing at Clarity, agreed the tracking system potentially could compromise some users' privacy. "We can't control how the phones are used," she said.
Within a family, she said minors provided with phones by their parents would have to comply with the tracking system. However, she said Clarity is developing a "privacy manager" that would require users to request or refuse tracking.
Carter said phone users would quickly realize they are being tracked because the phone interface has a map showing where users are located.
Carter said other products on the market would be more easily used for spying than cell phones that need to be regularly recharged.
Clarity is part of the emerging market of location-based services built on basic location information available on most cell phones to help 911 operators.
Robert Gourdine, director of marketing of the North American Internet & Wireless Business Unit of Chicago-based Navteq, the leading provider of digital map data, said there are "huge business opportunities" for companies such as Clarity that develop location-based services.
"The industry is moving beyond location and navigation. You can overlay any type of service on top of location information, and create something new," he said.
Clarity found its way into the location-based services business as a result of developing gear for Lucent aimed at helping wireless phone companies locate phones as required under the federal mandate for 911 services on cell phones.
Leo Modica, Clarity's principal engineer, said "We discovered to our surprise how accurate the GPS devices were on cell phones. They were accurate in the best case to within 5 to 10 feet."
Fuentes said cellular companies were open to new ideas since the new location systems required billions of dollars of investment and would only be used for 911 calls on average once every two years per customer.
Clarity got into the location business in early 2003 with Navigator, a GPS-based service on a cell phone, which provides directions, points of interests and turn-by-turn, voiced-guided navigation. The service is available for Nextel customers for a $9.99 activation fee plus $6.95 per month. For more information, go to www.way-to-go.net.
Navigator morphed into Whereabouts, which last year won an award for personal security in Navteq's Global LBS Challenge, a competition designed to encourage location technology innovation and reward it with cash prizes and Navteq software licenses. Clarity is a semi-finalist in the business applications category in this year's LBS Challenge with its Where2Talk product, which combines Clarity's push-to-talk technology with location services.
Subscribers who use Where2Talk can see current locations of other users on a contact list. The service has a PC-based Dispatch Console that maps a team, and enables a dispatcher to contact team members based on their location, pushing them directions or other information onto their handsets.
Bill Jenkins, vice president of business development at Clarity, said Where2Talk is aimed at builders, delivery services and other companies with "deployed work forces," but could be used by families and friends to keep track of each other.
hwolinsky@suntimes.com
Lane Tech grad's route to Clarity
Jim Fuentes, president of Clarity Communication Systems Inc., followed a circuitous path to the wireless business, from Lane Tech High School to working on the Stealth fighter and then developing cellular phone systems for Lucent.
Fuentes, 50, grew up on the Northwest Side, and then earned degrees in aeronautical engineering and computer science from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. Out of school, he worked on the Stealth fighter for Lockheed's Skunkworks in California and Possumworks in Georgia. He worked on defense projects for Northrup in Rolling Meadows before joining Bell Labs here in 1989.
Eight years ago, he and some Lucent colleagues started Clarity as a custom developer of services for the wireless industry.
Friends and family kicked $500,000 into the bootstrap outfit. Clarity attracted more technical talent from Lucent, which offered buyouts to older workers in 2001. Clarity now has 75 employees, primarily in Aurora, up from 55 a year ago.
Fuentes said the privately held company is "highly profitable," but doesn't disclose revenues.
"The Chicago area is ideal for a company like ours. Chicago has big universities, O'Hare and central location," he said. "Too many people willing to take risks go to the Silicon Valley."
--Howard Wolinsky
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