projects of interest?

[Dylan McCall]

I am interested in a centralized locations system that replaces the address
/ phone numbers system, which stores actual physical locations along with
GPS coordinates.
Ideally, it would be encouraged that every application which could use it
did use it. For example, sharing locations between people, tagging
photographs with locations (both hard GPS coordinates and soft locations
determined by looking up locations recorded in the database), call recieving
automatically deactivated when entering a location tagged as a no phone
zone, WiFi access point cataloguing / searching, navigation helpers, etc.

Ideally, it would use a tagging system, of course. Locations (general areas
around GPS coordinates) would be set (to names) and tagged / further
detailed by the user as well as by other applications.
In my opinion, it could a really neat way to integrate the real world with
computers, and it could provide something similar to that "GeoCaching"
phenomenon. (Which would be a really great, unique feature).

I have done a few prototypes on my desktop computer (which emulates OpenMoko
at record slow speed) and the results are rather promising. I have yet to
bother using a database or anything that isn't dog slow, but by leaving the
whole system open ended (key / value pairs added by other programs via a
library) the interface ends up very tidy and easy to operate. The biggest
problem seems to be setting the size of locations so it doesn't say "near my
house" when inside of it. It would be handy if the phone had 720 degree
laser measurement things, but that's not going to happen...


Quick little random question with no relation to the above (do not let me
highjack the thread with this!): Will a peripheral attached to the device
that is not its own "normal" hardware be interacted with in the same way as
its regular hardware? For example, would a mystical bluetooth camera
peripheral be able to talk to the device and be just as useful as its built
in camera, with regards to software?

Bye,
-Dylan McCall

On 7/17/07, Torfinn Ingolfsen <tingox at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 7/17/07, Giles Jones <giles.jones at zen.co.uk> wrote:
> > We need a good use for GPS, I want something like Tomtom but this
>
> How about POI[1] tracking?
> Simple idea: when the Neo user enters a POI, she or he presses a
> button (read: starts a program), the GPS waypoint is recorded, perhaps
> the program asks about a name / refence for the POI, then the waypoint
> and other data is sent to the user's preferred server (using GPRS, SMS
> or whatever comms is possible) for storage.
> Possible uses: can be combined with Google Maps or something like that
> to give other people an idea of the "travel route" you have followed.
>
> When there is an OpenMoko phone with WLAN, info about any currently
> usable WLANs can also be sent
>
> 1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_interest
> --
> Regards,
> Torfinn
>
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>
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