Category: LBS

Categories
LBS Mobile

mashup* – Being Location Aware Event

mashupredlong

I am going to be speaking at the  mashup* – Being-Location-Aware Event in London on the 19th March, an event which I hope will really capture the current excitement around using  location in both mobile and desktop applications.

After many false starts, your location is finally easily available to application developers allowing them to create a range of applications which use where you are, as a key element of context providing more relevant information and services to the user.

There are of course still many areas to be explored, around business models, technology platforms and privacy, and this event I’m sure will provide a great forum to continue the debate.

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Categories
LBS windows 7

The Location driver..

I have made the point a few times that for Geospatial services to belcome really mainstream, the ability to determine a users/devices location needs to be a standard function. The two latest mobile phone “operating systems” the iphone’s version of  MacOS and Android already have this, and we are seeing more and more location aware applications.

So it was no surprise that Microsoft announced last week that Windows 7 will also have a core location API, this is still a big deal as it has the potential of making location aware applications really commonplace at last, finally reducing the level of complexity for the developer to that of using a software driver.

I am concerned with some early reports as to the ability to control with enough granularity when  your location is made available, but hopefully that will imporve over the next year before the software is released.

All eyes then on Macworld in January, I would be surprised if we don’t know see a location API as a new feature of Snow Leopard. 

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Android LBS

Wikitude : Practical Augmented Reality

Earlier this week I was talking to a group of travel journalists and demonstrated wikitude, one of the hottest applications available for the new Android powered G-1 phone. Wikitude uses the GPS, Digital Compass and camera on the G-1 to deliver one of the first really practical augmented reality applications, excellent for travel and tourism applications.

It was only a few years ago that I remember the efforts the Research team at the OS put into building a prototype of such a system to demonstrate the potential of such an interface although I don’t think my fellow directors really “got it” despite our efforts.

From the video below the potential of such an interface for displaying geospatial information is obvious.

Wikitube was another one of the Android developer challenge award winners, developed by Mobilizy a small team based in Austria who are themselves a validation of the open source approach to mobile development, a small team with a great development platform and user generated geodata content can create a truly innovative application.

Written and submitted from Vienna Airpot, using its free wifi network.