Geo-Everything

From Horizon Project

2009 Short List [edit] Time-to-Adoption: One year or Less Mobiles Cloud Computing Collaborative Environments Paperless Publishing [edit] Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years Geo-Everything The Personal Web 3D Virtual Worlds Alternative Input Devices [edit] Time-to-Adoption: Four to Five Years Semantic-Aware Applications 3D Telepresence Thin Screens, Flexible Interfaces Smart Objects [edit] Critical Challenges [edit] Key Trends

Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years

Geolocation technology is not new, but it is now beginning to appear in an increasing range of common devices like mobile phones, cameras, and other handheld devices. Similarly, mapping geolocative data is not new; but the ability to easily create map mashups online using multimedia and geotagged data is. Now that geolocative data is becoming easy to capture and apply as tag data, we are beginning to see applications for research and learning that are quick and inexpensive but still very effective. Researchers can study migrations of animals, birds, and insects or track the spread of epidemics using data from a multitude of personal devices uploaded as geotagged photographs, videos, or other media plotted on readily-available maps. Many free or very low-cost tools to capture and display geolocative data are available online, and are much easier to use than previously.

Web services are beginning to make use of geolocative data in creative and useful ways. Radar (http://outside.in/radar) serves up local information like news, blog posts, restaurant reviews, and so on, based on a viewer’s location. The service can determine a computer’s location automatically based on IP address (if the user permits), allowing travelers to instantly get local information on their laptops wherever they may be. Buzzd (http://buzzd.com) is a city guide and social networking tool for mobile devices, including not only local information but also user ratings and tips. These relatively simple applications of geolocative data represent its earliest uses in websites and mobiles, but this cluster of technologies is developing very rapidly.

[edit] Relevance for Teaching, Learning & Creative Expression

• Geolocation opens up opportunities for learning and data acquisition in the field for the sciences, social observation studies, and other disciplines.
• Mobile learners can receive context-aware information about nearby resources, points of interest, historical sites, and colleagues, connecting all this with online information for just-in-time learning.
• Students can collect and mine geotagged information for research purposes.

[edit] Examples

• Stanford U. Unveils iPhone Application That Will Soon Let Students Locate Each Other
• Google Lit Trips plot places and journeys from literature and children’s books: http://www.googlelittrips.com
• Students in an Oakland, California high school used locative media to create stories about their area, map content, and geotag it: http://www.locative-media.org/projects/C82/
• CommunityWalk provides a way to create and annotate custom maps, including geotagged data and photographs uploaded or pulled from Flickr: http://www.communitywalk.com/

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[edit] For Further Reading

• A Collaborative Map of Modernism in Australia
  http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2008/09/a-collaborative.html
  (Dan Hill et al., City of Sound, September 2008.) This map displays the locations of modernist architecture across Australia, with links and images. It was developed after the author visited and critiqued the Modern Times exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum as a way of extending the reach of the exhibition across Australia.

• GeoPodcasting – Adding Location to Audio
  http://www.randomconnections.com/?Fp?D1158
  (Tom, Random Connections, 1 November 2007.) This post describes ways to geotag audio material like podcasts.

• How Your Location-Aware iPhone Will Change Your Life
  http://lifehacker.com/395171/how-your-location+aware-iphone-will-change-your-life
  (Adam Pash, Lifehacker, 5 June 2008.) The iPhone’s location-aware features enhance a host of applications from social networking tools to geotagging photos taken by the phone to nearby restaurant recommendations.

[edit] Share More Examples or Resources

If you have additional examples, please add them below:

• GeoCommons easy mashups of data and maps http://www.geocommons.com/

• GPS is taking off, as phone makers, carriers, and service providers have realized that consumers generally have no idea where they are, ever. A location-based service (LBS) takes raw GPS data that pinpoints your location and enhances this information with additional services, from suggesting nearby restaurants to specifying the whereabouts of your friends. LBS was originally envisioned as simply using old-school cell-phone signal triangulation to locate users' whereabouts, but as the chips become more common and more sophisticated, GPS is proving to be not only handy and accurate but also the basis for new services. Many startups have formed around location-based services. Want a date? Never mind who's compatible; who's nearby? MeetMoi can find them. Need to get a dozen people all in one place? Both Whrrl and uLocate's Buddy Beacon tell you where your friends are in real time. Expect to see massive adoption of these technologies in 2009 and 2010. From PC World 15 Technologies that will Change Everything [LJ]

• Add an example here [LJ]

• Add an example here [LJ]