Personally, I'm still waiting for someone to cough up the $$s to
develop the .geo TLD, which could be used with mobile devices
(quite easy to do with Mobile IP's secondary IP address assigned
to devices). Unfortunately, at the moment, everything is named:
fwisp-extN.docomo.ne.jp
...and the LOC records aren't there. For location information,
that leaves only DoCoMo and possibly Java access on certain
handsets that have GPS built-in (useless indoors, unless we're
talking wide scale deployment of pseudo-satellites with access
points, which we all know isn't going to happen). I'd like to
think that DoCoMo has been slow to roll position information
out because they're figuring out how to let the users opt-in.
...but I know this is a hopelessly idealistic fairy tale.
One step away from GeoCaching (geo information caching, perhaps?):
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/phones/phones.jsp?id=23194900
Above all else, I believe the DoCoMo wants to be in complete control
of what information exists where. And that means no localized,
business run bluetooth/imode "access points" spouting information
in an uncontrolled manner. In general, history has shown third
party attempts to exert control over the user usually results in
failure (though DoCoMo may end up having more success due to the
fact that they're not really offering the full internet experience
to their users and that they have a captive audience without
sufficient choice).
An attempt at meta-commentary:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,20101,00.html
(couldn't find references for gooey, or whatever it was called)
An attempt to end-run DNS and oblivate the need for search engines:
http://www.wired.com//news/culture/0,1284,5649,00.html
Graham Brown wrote:
>
> 2 interesting stories to keep us all up to date on world affairs
>
> "Locate your nearest Big Mac in Tokyo to the nearest 5 meters"
> MacDonald's goes GPS with KDDI EZWEB in Japan
> http://www.wirelessworldforum.com/w2fnews11464.html
> Has anyone used this service in Japan ? Seems like everyone's talking about
> Starbucks etc. It seems kind of pointless when it's almost impossible to be
> 20 meters away from any given MacDonalds or Starbucks in Tokyo or any other
> major city for that matter!
>
> "C ad txt ur rspns"
> Interacting with billboard hoardings with SMS in Ireland
> http://www.wirelessworldforum.com/w2fnews11465.html
> A useful application of SMS that will find favour with advertising. How
> much is interaction a part of billboard hoardings in Japan ? Do advertisers
> provide some kind of quicklink to imode sites by virtue of the ad itself ?
> I suppose the next step is Bluetooth interactivity of some sort whereby the
> ad actually speaks to your device, which of course raises all kinds of
> security issues.
>
My perfect example of a geolocation service desperately waiting to
happen involved cab/taxi service in Australia. As you may or may not
know, cab service involves an autodispatch service to which almost
every cab subscribes (priced at ~AU$500/month). For this, the cab
drivers are automatically fed fare data from those fares who have
taken the time to call the phone number. GPS information is fed from
the cab to the dispatch service. My dilemma usually involved needing a
specialized cab, not knowing where a good spot was to hale cabs from,
not having a phone or not wanting to call the fscking dispatch service
(usually busy *and* nosy). I would have killed for a simple web page
(WAP) to which I could have surfed that shows *exactly* where the cab
meeting my specifications was waiting for a fare. It would have been
so extremely simple for the dispatch service to add to their menu of
services (allowing them to split revenue with the carrier). Alas,
cab service in Australia is it's own little legal mafia and extremely
adverse to change. Indeed, after talking with cabbies, I learned
that all the new guys like the autodispatch service (it kept
expectations to a minimum and allowed them to be "lazy"); the old
cabbies were generally resentful and thought that the autodisptach
services limited their ability to use their "knowledge" to achieve
above average performance (the new guys referred to this a "cheating"
due to the fact that under voice disptach, older cabbies would
often lie about their location to pick up a fare before the new
guys even though the new guy was "closer" (by position, not by
time to find the fare)). A very few of the independent (owning
their own cabbie regos) had both voice and automated dispatch...
which brings up yet another facet of .au cab operations; most of
the cabs are owned by large conglomerates and the drivers are
merely keeping the front seat warm 24/7 (hence the need to keep
the cab fleets staffed with the low paid young and dumb recent
imports with few employment prospects).
...anyway, that's probably more than you wanted to know.
I guess the point is that information services shouldn't necessarily
try to change the way things are traditionally done (like haling a
cab, or even driving one for that matter)... and this is particularly
likely to be true with respect to how we manage our daily life in the
geographical confines of meat space.
BTW, I just saw an interesting BSTV piece on job location services
for freeters. All the services featured show the freeters hanging
out in dingy waiting rooms at 5:30am waiting for jobs and getting
their pay handed over in cash after inconning the paperwork. The
staff at the placement agency seemed to outnumber those getting
placed... odd that. Also detailed was the ability for the placement
agency to "grade up" (prefect for the video game generation now
just beginning to reach the age of employability) or exit the freeter
from their service in a seemingly graceful manner. Hey, maybe this
will provide JIT payroll *and* eliminate middle level management!
I particularly like the fact that the age of the "fitter" was about
the same as the "freeter" (that's gota' require some cultural
adjustment).
Received on Mon Jan 21 17:36:59 2002