LBS Tidbits - 6/14/11

EarthSearch (ECDC), and integrator of RFID and GPS solutions, is currently exploring the development of a number of social networking and mobile applications, under a new division, with a specific focus on GPS utilization.

Very late to the game and nothing in the article suggests anything new.

- Wall Street Newscast

Navigon announced new POI datasets sourced from OpenStreetMap for Europe. The five layers (health, food and drink, etc.) run a few Euros each or all can be had for 9.99 Euros.

- GPS Biz News

Days after Google announced it has started its effort to introduce 3-D 'walk through' maps for Indian cities, it's biggest competitor in India - MapmyIndia.com - has opened up its fine-grained map to the public for free.

- Real Time News India

Indoor Positioning and the Navigation of Small Spaces - Presentations from the OGC workshop at COM.Geo #comgeo

Indoor navigation comprises the collection of 2D mapping data, building information models (BIM)  and 3D visualization. Presentations delivered at COM.Geo this week nicely framed these issues.

Carl Smyth, director at MobileGIS Ltd, characterized the situation by stating that small scale spaces are inherently 3D, but for true navigation applications, human cognition is challenged. Applications must consider that the obfuscation of objects is prevalent.

Perfect knowledge models break down because there might be too much detail; too many sources; no consistency; and details are incomplete. In contrast with large spaces, most small space features are "areal" and not "linear." So, how does the paradigm change for indoor navigation? Smyth suggested these principals:

• Pay attention to human cognition.
• Incorporate mobile device sensors.
• Offload "hard" conversion, mining, rendering, image processing, or line of sight remotely to a cloud service.
• Agree to work with partial and contradictory information from multiple sources.
• Build on a self-sustaining web of consumed and created resources.

Not surprisingly, the company that has invested so much in vehicle navigation, NAVTEQ, is looking closely at facilitating navigation to objects as well, or what Paul Bouzide of NAVTEQ calls "highly-context-focused 'around me' use cases." Citing the not always obvious issue that geospatial features and properties are dynamic. He mentioned that in the case of building models, walls and fixtures change, color schemes and décor change and signage can be altered both purposely and otherwise. Any change can matter crucially to the contextual behavior of the application and to maintaining believability and realism. Most changed features or properties exist in relation to others and can depend on prior changes for consistency. NAVETQ also considers adjuncts to road navigation such as parking spaces, road edge, or sidewalks as a component of small space navigation

Geoff Zeiss, Autodesk's director of the Utility Industry Program, discussed how BIM has significant cost savings not just in pre-construction visualization but also during the entire constricution process so that project managers can keep the project on schedule. But Zeiss pointed out that the biggest use is in operating and maintenance management after construction where, as mentioned above, objects properties change and keeping track of these changes is critical to good building maintenance. Zeiss truly feels that BiM may represent an inflection point in engineering design.

Dr. Eyal Ofek, a principal researcher at Microsoft on the Bing Maps team demonstrated how the problem of "data freshness" and currency can be mitigated by using crowd-sourced information like photos. Microsoft Photosynth has been used to illustrate changes to both indoor and outdoor environments.

Michael Loushine, a senior scientist with Telcordia Applied Research presented information about how to "Move E911 Indoors" thereby extending the scenarios we use for emergency response to indoor situations. He said that standards are being used to Improve situational awareness in e911 prototypes such as those from the OpenMobile Alliance (OMA), 3GPP, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Presence Information Description Format Location Object extension (or PIDF-LO) and the OMA Secure User Plane (SUPL) to perform network-based position determination and context. However key to any implementation would be also based on OGC specifications and the use of CityGML would be important.

Summarizing this session that was organized by the OGC was George Percival suggesting that from here, much collaborative development needs to occur to expand the Geoweb to an "Internet of Things." While the session focused more on the platform development rather than the positioning device environment (i.e. RFID tags or other RF sensors), sensor web enablement (SWE) was a central theme to the entire discussion.

See also OGC's resources.

ABI Research on “Smart Cities” Clusters Location-enabled technologies

The market research firm ABI Research has packaged a series of reports called "Smart Cities Research Cluster" that gather intelligence on the market size for a variety of location-enabled applications. These applications include

• Fleet Management
• Public Safety
• Smart Meters for Smart Grids
• Traffic Information Systems
• Intelligent Transportation Systems
• Wireless Sensor Networks

...and several more. It’s worth looking into if you have to look at the potential for each segment.

Indoor Positioning - The Last Few Steps to the Mall’s Restrooms

Forget trying to locate the Mona Lisa at the Louvre… find me the nearest restroom!

If you have kids, you know instantly the panic associated with the words, "Daddy, I have to go…!" Ok, enough said.

So, what can you do about it? Indoor positioning and navigation has been on the back burner when compared to location-based social networking. Matching the technology with data hasn’t exactly been easy to integrate. GPS doesn’t work indoors and RFID doesn’t exactly solve the problem. RF Ultra-wide band (UWB) technology in general has its own issues with deployment and expense (See Q-Track).

Within the last few weeks, I’ve been reading more and more about apps that are getting much closer to being "consumerized." A few weeks ago, we published my interview with Tristian Lacroix on these issues and its a useful review of what’s been going on to solve the indoor positioning challenges. And we’ll soon publish an interview with Point Inside’s Brian Wilson on the deployment of his company’s technology at retailer Meijer that maps this grocer’s store floor and guides customers to specific product aisles. Think about it… no more wondering where to find the Skippy Peanut Butter!

Then, in today’s New York Times, there is an article on an iPhone apps specifically for navigating your way around the Metropolitan Museum Modern Art and the American Museum of Natural History, both in New York, as well as museums in other cities. The combination of tour guide and navigation is supremely appealing. Although the article does not specifically mention augmented reality (AR) (see this informative article by Timo Elliot of SAP on AR) as means of either guiding or informing, enhancing these apps with AR can’t be far behind.

And, it should elicit discussion on who pays for these kinds of positioning apps for malls, museums, and other facilities. In addition, should they be linked to social networking apps like Foursquare so that if you "check in" to the Florence and Herbert Irving Galleries for Chinese Decorative Arts on the 3rd floor of the "Met" your wife will know if you have the kids with you! Anyway, you get the point. The integration of indoor navigation technology with floor maps, tourist information and the means to find your friends is well on its way toward mainstream adoption.

My Black Friday Shopping Map

Yesterday, I took a look at the Walmart maps being offered to shoppers for Black Friday by the Massachusetts store cited in our APB post today. Looking like every other Walmart floor plan that the retailer stamps into the landscape around the country, I got to thinking about how I’d want my "shopping map" to look like. If I were to be lured to the 4:00 a.m. low, low prices, obsequious to the will of the mega-retailers on that fateful day after Thanksgiving, this is how I would want to start my hunt for the ultimate door-busting bargains.

First, I’d want my car navigation system (let’s go with a Garmin…I’m partial to their PNDs) equipped with the locations of every retailer and their hours of operation on BF (yes, Black Friday).

Next, I’d map out the route to each store allowing just enough time to scarf-up the best sale items at each.

However, this is predicated by having a map of each floor plan for each retailer loaded onto my Blackberry (sorry, I’m a business guy…don’t do iPhone schtick). Perhaps we could get the good folks at uLocate to work on this for the Where application.

Next, the retailers would have to allow the floor plans to be tagged with the location of the best sale items. This might be similar to what the rather crude Walmart map provides, but please, we are a bit more sophisticated in our geospatial awareness these days, so let’s have better precision, right? I’m thinking that there should be some RFID device for each item and a shopping cart that synch’s via Bluetooth to my Blackberry to navigate around the store. Whenever the cart passes along the isle with the most sought-after gadgets, my Blackberry provides the alert and I’m directed appropriately.

Having snagged the item from the shelf, I’m then provided with a traffic map of the store floor, whisking my buggy to route around the bulging crowds to the nearest cash register with the fewest in line. This is micro-geography at its finest.

My items are scanned as I zoom past the counter, swipe my credit card, and I’m out the door…on to the next BF adventure.

I’m headed to the parking lot where I’m met with a swarm of hungry, sleep-deprived shoppers, goodness knows where I parked my car. But in the perfect geospatial world, I am directly by voice commands by my PND to the location of my space and my car is automatically unlocked as I approach with a cart-load of gifts, recognizing of course that my bio sensor-equipped vehicle knows my proximal location.

Safely inside, I rev the engine and I’m off to the next store, real-time traffic and weather guiding my every move. And because I’ve integrated my PND with geo-located Twitter feeds, I’m getting updates on new bargains in the vicinity. I’m re-routed as necessary…my Christmas shopping list consulted and advised.

In a perfect world…Have a great Thanksgiving.