Category: Thoughts

Bloomberg reports the latest rumours surrounding the upcoming iPhone launch, including such Geo technologies as LIDAR expected to feature in at least some of the new devices this Autumn.

The extent to which such previously specialised and complex technologies are reaching the mass market should not come as a surprise, after-all GPS receivers were once very specialised. As soon as a consumer value was identified however, mass market production and simplification reduced the price of these features considerably, and today they provide much of the smart in smartphones!

However the most interesting part of the report for me is almost a footnote, Apple will introduce a “Find my Remote” capability to the next generation Apple TV.

In the crazy days of Where 2.0 and the maximum inflection point for Location Based Services (LBS) we used to quote that one of the most common phases uttered on phone calls was “Where are you?”, thus we argued there was a huge opportunity for friend finding applications – well that did not quite work out, however when did you last ask at home… “Where is the TV remote?” while searching under the sofa cushions…

Where is the TV remote ?

Unlike friend finding there are no privacy implications of finding your own stuff in your own home.

This is a perfect example of Ambient Location working at the personal scale, the application of traditional geospatial technology over the range of a few metres often having the users own location as the origin of a local private coordinate system.

It may be argued that we are still only in the early days of the “Internet of Things” where the networked devices we own at home (or work – is there a difference these days?) both provide relevant information to us and modify their behaviour based on both environmental factors and the proximity of people to them.

I get the feeling I’m still very much the “early adopter” with my Nest smoke detectors sensing when nobody is at home to switch off the heating or having my Hue controlled lights automatically turn on when my video door bell recognises I’m returning home..

This is all still rather complex to set up and, if I’m honest, rather flakey in operation..

But… there is another innovation which the “Find my Remote” use case also demonstrates that may make this all much more mainstream.

Coming to a surface near you soon…

Surface computing is another term beloved by technologists which covers the development of voice based assistants and other personal technology such as home electronic displays which are becoming alternative “surfaces” which we use to interact with the internet and with cloud based services.

“Alexa, re-order AA batteries”, “Hey Google, Join my meeting”, and soon “Siri, where is my remote” are phrases becoming common in our homes and make use of the surface interfaces to home automation services – and of course many of these surfaces rely on an explicit knowledge of location, at least within the logical framework of our homes.

If I’m in the Kitchen, I just have to ask to “Switch on the lights”, there is an explicit knowledge that since the Home Hub in the kitchen picked up my voice, the lights I’m requesting switched on are those in the kitchen..

This understanding of our homes from a spatial perspective is still rather limited, we don’t for example usually have an understanding of the topological connections between rooms but that will come… perhaps from devices equipped with LIDAR!

The “Parsons Test” of IoT ?

In the past I have offered the simple use case of

“Hello Computer, are my keys upstairs?”

as a test case for demonstrating a useful application of combined IoT / surface computing, seems we are getting close to passing the test.

Of course we could just eliminate the need for keys or remote controls in the first place ;-

I happened to be searching this blog for some material this morning and came across this partial post from 13 years ago Foot and Mouth a Geographical Problem. An outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) occurred in August 2007 on a farm near Normandy in Surrey and movement restrictions were implemented within a few days and kept in place for a month. Livestock movements were banned and a 3 km protection zone was put in place around the affected farm and a wider 10 km zone for cattle surveillance introduced. The action was swift and effective and based on the experience of the much worst 2001 outbreak and a fundamental understand that the transmission of the virus between livestock was a geographical problem.

Swift action by Defra, the government agency responsible for animal health and countryside matters, was an important aspect in reducing the impact of this outbreak and of course the contrast with the governments response to COVID-19 this August is interesting.

There was much greater understanding of Foot and Mouth Disease in 2007, unlike the novel COVID-19, the method by which the virus spread between livestock had been understood for more than 100 years, in particular the virus was spread by

• Close animal-to-animal spread
• Long-distance aerosol spread
• Fomite or infected objects transmission such as fodder or motor vehicles

Sounds familiar?

Fundamentally all virus transmission follows the First Law of Geography, in that the risk of transmission is directly related to the proximity to the person, animal or object with an active viral load. As a result of past experience with FMD there is a complex Cattle Tracing System that monitors all livestock movements along with monitoring animal health both locally and at the UK borders.

Only recently does it appear that the UK Government is starting to look at the response to COVID as a local or neighbourhood issue as opposed to the previous monolithic national approach. Selective “lock-downs” which have occurred in some cities seem to have been effective, but are still working at too large a scale.

The government is currently reporting COVID-19 cases by Middle Layer Super Output Areas (MSOA) an ONS geospatial unit covering a population of around 7,000 people.

This is of course a good starting point and might offer a better foundation for local lockdowns than the current city based approach, for example Bradford as I write this post is covered by a local restriction, but looking at the MSOA level data there is a clear spatial distribution of cases within the city.

We really need to be working on even more localised measures at a neighbourhood or specific location level and of course this is where the overlap with contact tracing occurs.

In my opinion (humble really!!) too much focus has been placed on tracing individuals rather than locations or specific sites which is a more easily managed problem both from the data collection point of view and in terms of reacting to outbreaks.

Venue check-ins seem to be a throwback to the days of Neogeography and the mayors of foursquare, but they remain a very practical and appropriate way for people to register they presence at a location in time and space. I was very much heartened by the addition of a “venue check in” function in the prototype NHS test and Trace app which will use a location specific QR code for users to “check-in” to locations as they go about their lives.

Let’s hope at least this function is finally rolled out!

It’s a simple message to communicate… “that a virus carrier was at the Red Lion on Tuesday and as you checked into the pub around the same time, please get a test..”

Geography is fundamental to managing the COVID-19 outbreak, in this mornings London Times a report on the findings of a paper published in the British Medical Journal suggests that the current social distancing guidelines are outdated and too simplistic, read between the lines and Tobler’s maxim is there…

everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things

Tobler W., (1970) “A computer movie simulating urban growth in the Detroit region”. Economic Geography, 46(Supplement): 234–240.

So where are the Geographers? amongst the Modellers, Epidemiologists, Public Health Officials and Politicians.. where is the Geographical thinking ?

Geospatial Commission this is your opportunity ?