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Writing Messages In Empty Space With GPS 278

Posted by timothy from the idea-whose-time-has-come dept.
meiocyte writes: "This New Scientist story about leaving messages in empty space seems very cool. You upload a message (or perhaps a picture, audio clip, etc.), it gets tagged with your GPS coordinates, and then anyone else who goes there gets to see/hear it. Every GPS-resolvable parcel of empty space will have its own web site!" Combine this with user-forums, and restaurant ratings could take on a whole new dimension. Update: 01/20 23:28 GMT by T : Oops -- looks like I duped Michael. Sorry.
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Writing Messages In Empty Space With GPS More

Writing Messages In Empty Space With GPS

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  • Didn't we see this (Score:1, Informative)

    by redcliffe ( 466773 )
    about a month ago?
    • Yup, about the 11th December

    • Re:Didn't we see this (Score:4, Funny)

      by Zeinfeld ( 263942 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @11:11PM (#2874570) Homepage
      Yes, the slashcrew got together one night at one of their debauched drinking sessions. After swigging a six pack of jolt apiece they started talking about nerdish hobbies, like hacking an XBox to run linux, or hacking a dishwasher to run linux, or running linux on a snowblower.

      The cafeine laden air was then pierced by a cry, "lets invent the dorkiest, nerdiest hobby ever and use slashdot to persuade people to do it!".

      Their first idea was to have people stand at airports and train stations taking the numbers of the trains as they pass. Then someone did a search on Google (which runs Linux) and found that 'trainspoting' has been thought of already, they even found a Web site giving advice on the best model of parker to wear while doing it.

      The GPS drawing idea was the result. $3 Billion dollars of orbiting infrastructure and they use it to make an etch-a-sketch.

      The more time people who do that kind of thing can be persuaded to do that kind of thinginstead of finding members of the opposite sex and procreating the happier I feel about the future of the world.

  • I don't like it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JanneM ( 7445 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @06:37PM (#2873699) Homepage
    Great - we can get spammed on GPS as well... Just imagine someone like a soda manufacturer buying a stretch of highway for a month, for example. If you use GPS navigation in your car, you'll get incessant harping about how thirsty you are, and how that particular brand of soda apparently makes your life better in one way or another.

    /Janne
    • Just so you know this isn't even as theoretical as you may have thought. I believe (though I'm not sure) that this is either already implemented with GM's OnStar car GPS system, or is in the works. When you drive near a McDonalds, it says "To get to McDonalds, turn left 1/2 mile up the road" or whatever.
    • Whenever I see an ad pop up in front of me, I'll just whip out my faithful mirror, and send the beam back to its source, thereby destroying the nasty sattelite that created the spam.

    • Re:I don't like it... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by H310iSe ( 249662 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @07:32PM (#2873943)
      Why be so negative, I've been waiting for this since I first heard the idea (it was somehow related to Douglas Adam's website, I think he was talking about actually making a hitchhiker's guide to the earth w/ this type of technology)

      The solution to your objection is simple, you create competing services - a BLOG-style service will leave personal notes ("I was looking up right here when I notice the tree limb above me was 1/2 sawed through. you might want to hurry along"), adverts (I really do want to know where the nearest beer is sometimes), etc. You'd 'subscribe' to the sites that interest you.

      I can't WAIT to write impressions, all the weird things I see when I walk through my day and read what other people are thinking about/seeing standing wherever I am. Architecture and history tutorials / commentary (think if the guy from the movie "cruising" got one of these, I'd *subscribe* to his channel!). And truely helpful tourist tips, imagine Lonely Planet's offerings?!?

      Come on, this is Amazing Technology We Want, don't dismiss it as another method for delivering advirtisements.

      • Re:I don't like it... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by evilWurst ( 96042 )
        This could be huge, if done right and if it becomes just another piece of common infrastructure. Here's one interesting twist:

        I like the works of Roger Zelazny...i've been rereading some in the past week, thinking mainly about how it sucks that he's dead, and how the supply of what he's written but that I haven't read is rapidly dwindling.

        So the thought was, you know, great authors like Zelazny, Douglas Adams, etc...I can see them having left momentary thoughts of theirs scattered around in their travels. And I can people going on quests to find tidbits like these, during an author's life but also long after his death.

        Made very interesting of course, given that Douglas Adams for instance has been some very remote places :) But you have to wonder what gems might have been left behind by him and many many others if this sort of GPS-blog had existed.
    • Wasn't this the purpose of the .GEO domain extension? I had a friend who ran an ISP in St. Paul that was really pushing for a domain based on lattitude, longitude, and altitude. Claimed the altitude would be useful for high rise installations. I suppose one could encrypt a message by spreading writing movements across a GPS space and then telling somebody to go to a coordinate and then head north?
    • The problem with this tagging idea is that in areas where many people visit there will be too many messages to sort through. Many of them will be spam, not particularly relevant, or just plain inflamatory. The solution to this problem would be to develope a moderation system where logged in users would rate each others comments. Comments with high ratings would be given higher visibility and comments with low ratings would be filtered according to the user's preference. Further, we could sort users by the ratings their comments receive and we could call this, erm, I know, karma! My idea is so perfect, what could possibly go wrong with it?
    • All this person is doing is presenting an opposing viewpoint. Are moderators really so one-dimensional that, in their own little candy-coated world, there isn't anything bad about attaching messages to GPS locations? Seriously, there's the potential for this technology to be really cool, but, like JanneM said, there's also the possibility of it being misused, or used for purposes other than what some of us would like (such as advertising.) Are moderators so stupid as to consider this opposing viewpoint "Flamebait"? Are we all supposed to blow our load in the comments to this (and every other) story about how neat-o keen this tech is, and squash all opposing viewpoints, no matter how cogent the argument?

      Wait, yes, we are. Slashdot needs two (and only two) moderation categories: +1 Groupthink, and -1 Thoughtcrime.

      - A.P.
      • The moderators are not one-dimensional, but the way how the moderation is presented makes them look so.

        It's a bug in Slashcode. If it annoys you, get the code and post the fix. The moderation flavor of the message should be determined by majority of the moderations, not by the last moderation.

        Even better, the flavor of the message should be determined by majority of the moderations with the same polarity as the sum of moderations made to the post, so that a message moderated up would never be marked as Flamebait, even if it got e.g. 2 Flamebait, 1 Insightful, 1 Interesting and 1 Funny.

        Of course, the ties should be so solved in favor of the last moderation.

    • What about the viruses?

      Hi! How are you?

      I meet you at these coordinates in order to have your advice.

      See you later! Thanks
  • Oh great, now every other block I walk down with my GPS gear in Seattle, I get bombarded with porno. It could be worse than SPAM!

  • pirates! (Score:5, Funny)

    by lowtekneq ( 469145 ) <lowtekneq@hotmailTWAIN.com minus author> on Sunday January 20, 2002 @06:39PM (#2873706) Homepage
    Yar ho ho, maybe i can use it to hide my Mp3/divx booty! X marks the spot. Kinda wierd how history repeats itself (in a way)

    • Re:pirates! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Transient0 ( 175617 )
      That would be really cool, if the technology worked that way. Unfortunately, that would suggest that some way to actually turn empty space into a computer storage mechanism had been discovered(aside from placing a hard drive in the previously empty space). What's actually going to happen is that any "spacial data" which you store will be uploaded to a GPS-Server. Then, anyone accessing the server with the same position codes would access the same information. The information on that server however, would be readable from anywhere by anyone with a powerful enough legal document.

      This could theoretically serve huge practical purposes but, like every other new media, it will quickly be co-opted for advertising nd porn. Like the internet, there will still be valuable stuff there, but you'll have to learn to ignore whatever new equivalent of banner ads and pop-ups.

    • Pirates, or Couch Pirates? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Transient0 ( 175617 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @07:19PM (#2873885) Homepage
      Here's another thought:

      If the way that this works is that a "web page" is being created on HP(or whoever) servers for each spot the first time someone posts there. This "new" web is basically just an extension of the old web. Will we end up with a new .GPS top level domain? Will all of the these locational web sites be browsable through the web as we know it?

      Basically, if i want to know what people are saying about my favorite restaurant/movie theatre/porno shop/whatever, do i have to actually go there or can i just plug the latitude and longitude into my web browser while sitting at home?

  • eek (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tipsy McStagger ( 312800 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @06:39PM (#2873707)
    Ugh, there are some places where i would really rather not have a video clip of previous activities, imagine getting a new room at uni halls or a hotel or something... eyugggh.

  • Great......... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Garion911 ( 10618 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @06:41PM (#2873713) Homepage
    I can see it now... Random baseball diamonds around the world:

    All your base are belong to us..

  • This will never happen (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JoeShmoe ( 90109 ) <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Sunday January 20, 2002 @06:42PM (#2873715)
    You think the web is already litigious? Wait until you see companies claiming they "own" the rights to certain property.

    Like Disneyowning all comment space in/around/driving to Disneyland and using that to squelch any warnings about, say, a child getting his foot caught in a ride.

    And food-lovers could post messages outside a restaurant door, giving subsequent visitors an instant endorsement-or a warning to take their custom elsewhere.

    Does anyone really think this has a chance? Or isn't it more likely the restaurant owner will sue anyone who posts disparaging messages for libel and slander while at the same time posting 1000 comments extolling the virtues of the food.

    The FBI will scream bloody murder about terrorists arranging targets or drug dealers arranding drop off points.

    As useful as this idea is, I can't see any possiblility of it existing in the US of A. After all, the Internet is non-coporial and there are still giant bitch-slap fights over companies thinking that some completely unrelated (but similarly named) website in on their turf, when the Internet is actually linked with turf it'll open up Pandora's legal retainer.

    - JoeShmoe

    .

    • Re:This will never happen (Score:3, Interesting)

      by garcia ( 6573 )
      sorry, but if I am pissed off at the service I receive at a restaurant and I feel the need to stand in the parking lot telling people what I think I have all the rights in the world to do so. How the hell would this be any different?

      What I would prefer is if you see a fucking cop sitting around the bend, you drive back, you pop in the message -- slow down now, cop ahead.

      Something like the guy that used to watch for cops, drive back a mile and put up a sign. "State Policeman Ahead, SLOW DOWN NOW."

      I like that idea.
      • sorry, but if I am pissed off at the service I receive at a restaurant and I feel the need to stand in the parking lot telling people what I think I have all the rights in the world to do so. How the hell would this be any different?

        Because this involves technology. Your point is absolutely correct, but when litigation gets to use technological buzzwords and confuse the hell out of judges, rationality goes out the window.
        Same reason I can't register a "website" named "verizonsucks.com", same reason I can distribute a howto for making dynamite but not a computer program that converts some thing named an "ebook" into another thing named a "pdf", same reason I can't use a program that views DVD's and the same reason I can't find my other shoe. Wait, forget one of those...it doesn't make sense. I leave it as a project for the reader to figure out which one.

      • I feel the need to stand in the parking lot telling people what I think I have all the rights in the world to do so

        Not in the parking lot you don't, no. The public street or sidewalk, yes.

        As for the cop, I agree, but I'd bet that those states which currently ban radar detectors would probably also want to go after this.

    • The reason I don't buy your argument is that this is a very decentralized idea. For example, why couldn't Slashdot include lat/long metadata along its users' comments, and let you show discussions in a certain region? I think the likelihood of getting legal trouble is as great as with the curent, possibly incriminating anonymous posts.

      A greater problem with this is that it's very hard to prevent posters from spoofing their geographic location. Thus, any fool with an Internet connection could appear to be posting from the local Starbucks, which would dillute the value of the comments similar to spam in usenet newsgroups. I wonder if some sort of moderation would be useful :)
  • And like most technologies, the first mainstream use will quickly turn into spam.

    Just like searching for "Middle East" will get you pr0n, you'll get ads for restaurants 30 miles away.

  • S/N Ratio (Score:3, Funny)

    by lcorc79 ( 549464 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @06:42PM (#2873718) Homepage
    I saw this a month or so ago, and remember thinking at the time that I was worried about the S/N ratio of this 'empty space' around me ...

    I'd hate to walk around every corner and get an X10 Popup .. *grin*
  • Pinning messages in mid-air, using the location's Global Positioning System (GPS) reference, could become the next craze in communications. The messages are not actually kept in the air: they're stored on an Internet page. But that page's Web address is linked to coordinates on the Earth's surface, rather than a person or organisation. As you move about, a GPS receiver in your mobile phone or PDA will check to see if a message has been posted on the website for that particular spot.

    I don't see why we would want to force the Internet into the reality sphere.

    Of course, GPS scavenger hunts are fun, but what would this be used for?

    Advertisements.

    It's not useful for community-rating or for espionage because everything there is not in the air, but on the Internet. And all GPS data goes through a small network of satellites, so if you stop in the middle of a playground in Bethesda, MD. the spies may not see your message, but they know you stopped there if they have access to GPS data, or at least know the last coordinates you took.

    So what it's useful for is e-biz and advertising. I don't think its worth exchanging our privacy for this advertising. I don't want everyone to have to carry a GPS phone, which has so many other security caveats, in order to plug into a new layer of advertising.
    • Wait a second. There is no transmission involved in obtaining geographic coordinates from GPS-- it's based strictly on observation. Your statement that merely using GPS for this purpose can reveal your location to an eavesdropper is incorrect.

      It would be possible if the eavesdropper could capture the message you send out, which would presumably contain the observed GPS coordinates. However, you explicitly ruled this case out.
  • This sounds like an interesting idea, but there are some issues to work out. For instance, how large a space can a message take up? Should all messages be limited to a set amount of space, say a circle 10 meters in diameter, or could individual message sizes be tailored to match the requirements of each message? And how are overlapping messages going to be resolved? Does the first message posted get priority, the latest message posted, or could the user choose from a menu to see all of them?

    Furthermore, the issue of time limits needs to be addressed--I don't want messages from three years ago clogging up the system. Perhaps each message should be limited to a month or two, maybe more or less depending on how popular the service gets.

  • Here's hoping they make a nice API for this! (Score:4, Funny)

    by khaladan ( 445 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @06:44PM (#2873727)
    int lat = 0;
    int long = 0;

    while(1) {
    for(lat = 0; lat < 360; lat++) {
    for(long = 0; long < 360; long++) {

    GPS_printf(lat, long, "ALL YOUR COORDINATES ARE BELONG TO US!!!\n");

    }
    }
    }
  • So their going to let me store what i want on their servers for free as long as i am in the 6 meter area or so i can access it how much exactly can i store?
    • very interesting. You could just use your GPS phone while sitting at your computer in order to store data. Sure, anyone else who was in the same room with a GPS could access it, but it would be perfect for stuff like MP3s. Of course, there are lots of "storage for ads" style sites already on the net, but i wonder if the people behind this have already considered whether or not this is the kind of service they want to offer.

      In todays world, any technological service provider must consider not only how they want it to be used, but the myriad other ways that people might think of to use it.

  • Some Research @ Cornell (Score:5, Informative)

    by Tony.Tang ( 164961 ) <slashdot&sleek,hn,org> on Sunday January 20, 2002 @06:44PM (#2873729) Homepage Journal
    Interesting. The HCI group at Cornell [cornell.edu] has done some work in this area. Their project involved GPS as well, and allowed students to "tag" objects with information. The project, called "CampusAware" was conceived as a system for tours; that is, a person on a tour could bring around a device, and it would beep when one came around a "tagged" area. A button press would reveal the information that was tagged there.

    The idea was that students could tag places as they saw fit.

    You can read more about the projects here [cornell.edu], and here [cornell.edu].

  • and think of the implications this will have on our society.

    Imagine, being able to walk to the store and stop at a certain corner, with the latest porn pics waiting there in a metphysical state, waiting for us to view.

    More seriously though, what type of legal implications can arrise?

    Can we think about laws for spamming invisible space BEFORE we allow everyone to do it.

    I'd hate walk to a corner looking for the latest Christina Aguilera(sp?) video and being told I quality for Viagara and that if I stand in that spot for 3 more minutes I can get a university diploma.
  • The thing that is interesting with this concept is it actually rivels the "WEB" as we know it. The web has enhanced our lives in many ways, but in other ways it has abandoned us or even never became what we wanted it to due to the speed barrier that we are STILL fighting.

    This concept is awesome, people will want to get out ... go with their new toys on tops of mountains to see/hear what others have done and share their moments together..

    The web right now is at an awful state. Thousands of abandoned sites, efnet sites closing down due to script kiddies and channel take over wars, etc.. it's becoming a very boring ghost town that not even google can keep up with.
    • This is true. The most travelled parts of the new web would be the most travelled parts of the world. I can think of a million and one random fun uses for this. For example, going and sitting under my favorite tree in the City Park and composing poetry, then just leaving it there. Or imagine someone comes up with something really interesting, one of those catch everyone's attention for a few seconds things(like All-Your-Base). Then they post it somewhere, like on the sidewalk of the main street in their city. Within half an hour, there are dozens of people trying to cram within a few meters of this spot to check it out. Then some clever person reposts it a few blocks over, and so on...
    • Well the new system would have it's downsides too. I can imagine what you'd get when your GPS corrdinates were 3rd stall down in a typical public bathroom - probably an uploaded pic of the last guy there whacking off or taking a dump.
  • The article talks about how every cell phone in the USA will have embedded GPS, the government justifying it by claiming that its needed for emergency services. We all know the real reason for GPS to be in every cell phone
    Does anyone else see a disturbing trend here? GPS receivers are as small as a dime now. Imagine the police attaching one to the car of a suspect. Technology providing yet another way for our rights to be violated.

    • Re:GPS in Cell Phones (Score:3, Interesting)

      by isorox ( 205688 )
      Imagine the police attaching one to the car of a suspect. Technology providing yet another way for our rights to be violated.

      They've been bugging cars for years. When was the last time you, as an innocent person, checked under your car for a bug with a 5 mile radius, allowing tracking wherever you are.

      Of course the criminals will check...

      More worrying is every object you own will have a gps in, no doubt to elp locating when it gets stolen. Got a watch? it has a bug in. Pen? Phone? Beer bottle? It'd be "enemy of the state", but for real.

      Along with every bit of digital information you own tagged, the only freedom you'll have is that of your mind. And how long will that last?
  • ..if most people were intelligent and responsible, but personally I don't feel like accessing it at some point in the woods during a camping trip and seeing that someone took a shit where I'm pitching my tent.

    I will basically degenerate into graffiti that needs no physical object to exist, "I wuz here" messages written in empty space.

    Still a cool idea though.
    • Heh - good point with the tent shit there!

      Similarly you might not want to be reading your gizmo in your girlfriends bedrom. Virtual graffiti is exactly what it is.

      However I could see this as being a cool and useful app for wireles PDAs - id the GPS could be cheap enough to be a standard item. Imaging sitting in a restaurant or vacation resort and being able to access what others in the same spot had to advise ("check out the waitresses hooters", or "try the beef!")...

      If any company was putting together such a system they could "seed" it with useful data by tying companies web sites, restaurant reviews or other pertinent data to their known geographic locations.
      • LOL, better point with "girlfriends bathroom", or bedroom or anything. Vice versa for that matter, can you imagine bringing somone home, and having her checking her gizmo while you're in the bathroom? You'd come out and she'd be armed with records of all the girls you brought back that used on in your place.
  • "A typical GPS receiver now costs only $100 compared to $100,000 a decade ago."

    So where are all these $100 typical GPS receivers everyone seems to be talking about? They seem to start at $120 and go up from there.

  • This has been floating around on other tech lists for a while. There is a descent article on HP's [hp.com] site [hp.com] about the technology and their envisioned application here [hp.com].

  • well... (Score:2, Funny)

    by zebs ( 105927 )
    Kilroy was here?
  • I remember seeing this about a month back. A repeat, perhaps? If you can find it, please reply and post!
  • This is the kind of thing that works perfectly in theory, where many, many things work. In real life though, it's going to require some serious social engineering to be used the right way. Perhaps the moderation system on Slashdot will be the seed that one day determines how something like this runs.

    I would, however be interested now in seeing the slightly less interactive version of this, where users can submit comments to be approved. Provided that only users (human beings), and not corporations can take advantage of this.

    There is a difference between Coca-Cola buying a stretch of freeway space to bombard you with SPAM, and the owner of a restaurant posting specials once a day.

  • GPS/Linux (Score:1, Redundant)

    by rice_burners_suck ( 243660 )

    I don't like this at all... Currently, this sounds like a bucket of hype without the technical possibility of making a system like this actually work.

    So, every parcel of space will have a website, eh? And where, pray tell, will these gajillions of websites be stored? Or, more likely, will each parcel of "space"--meaning its coordinates--be mapped to DNS? If so, this sounds just like the stupid idea a year or two ago of mapping peoples' phone numbers to DNS. (It's exactly the opposite of what you want to do. If you want to find a particular person's website, why not make use of the new .name TLD and use the person's full name?) Combine that with the current abuse of the DNS system, and the ongoing violations of its original design, and you have a big mess. (The ongoing violations are as follows: Every company or d00d out there gets the same domain name registered under .com, .net, .org, .this, .that, and whatever other .'s there are out there. The correct way to do this is by subdividing everything by two-letter country codes, as was originally intended, so that the address space won't get all jumbled up like it is now, thanks to the current mess.)

    In other words, this sounds like just one more way to send SPAM. Oh well.

    • If so, this sounds just like the stupid idea a year or two ago of mapping peoples' phone numbers to DNS. (It's exactly the opposite of what you want to do. If you want to find a particular person's website, why not make use of the new .name TLD and use the person's full name?)

      How about because two different people can have the same name, while no two people can have the same phone number? If you use names then you're just asking for domain wars all over again. This is, I think, one of the biggest failings of the Domain Name System with respect to the modern Internet: no two people or organizations can have the same name, at least and get equal recognition. Especially now that we have Google, I don't really see much of a problem with switching back to a numbered system (maybe not IP addresses, since you can't move those around, but some similar system with arbitrarily assigned numbers). After all, telephone books served us quite well back in the day...

  • The biggest question on my mind is who will own the space where these messages are left? Will I own the cubicle area in my office building? Will my company? Will they allow me to use it? What if I use it for advertising something I'm working on outside of work?

    Who will own the space outside the restaurant? You and I? The public? What if someone who hates the restaurant owner leaves nasty, misleading messages in that space outside the place -- does the owner have recourse? Who does he go to? HP?

    Who's message will have a higher priority? Mine? Yours? Your mom's? Will it be based on age? Date posted? Will bots come out posting the latest or the highest rated note for that particular GPS location? Will a Slashdot-like moderation system need to be implemented to sort out the crap/flamebaits/trolls from the insightful/interesting/funny notes?

    Are the notes time dependant? "I just left a doosey in here!" near a public toilet -- does that stay until someone else posts, or only 5 minutes?

    I wonder if the real estate agents will start selling the space with the house/commercial property, or if they will sell it separately.

    It will be interesting to see.

  • GPS grafitti! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ergo98 ( 9391 )

    People aren't "writing messages" into the GPS system (I'm still astounded at how many people totally misunderstand GPS. Almost everyone who sees my GPS asks me what the `subscription' to it costs, or if I'm concerned that they're "tracking" me: People don't understand that GPS, as a base technology, is completely passive and is just the triangulation [What is it called when it's among 12 points?] of a ping from 12 points). Basically you could do something like this by making a website that took longitude/latitude, and you find the closest record to their point and send it as the response: It's neither brilliant, nor amazing, but it is an obvious merging of technologies, and it's localizing the net (which is a fantastic thing not only for the user experience, but also truly for advertising).

  • Advertisers will be using it a heck of a lot more than regular people... first time that restaurant finds out somebody is posting magic notes, they'll have a repeater drown it out with what they want to say.
  • I think it's saying something more about the current state of things than the future that the first thing that people have to say about this is "What about the spam?"

    But as for the idea itself: I can't see this being a universal thing. A million people leaving a million messages about, say, the new ride at Six Flags? Who wants to read all that?

    I really couldn't care less about what John Q. Public has to say about the state of the restrooms in the Burger King I'm stopping at off the freeway. There's a reason I stopped peering into AOL chat rooms: Most people have nothing important to say, but still they say it anyways.

    Of course, if there were a moderation system implemented-- rating the comments-- like on Slashdot, it could be interesting. But a system like that would take even longer to set up, and I can't see anybody interested in doing it. It would take the resources of a major investor to get this off the ground, and I may be short-sighted, but I'm not sure where the profit could be had.

    File this one under "nifty in theory."
    • Of course, if there were a moderation system implemented-- rating the comments-- like on Slashdot, it could be interesting.


      Mmmm, yes, not moderation, but a peer web of trust. I don't think it's feasable for this type of project with current technology, but it seems to work great (on paper) for the P2P IM client I'm working on. Basically you have a list of friends and their public keys. The software validates the message/presence of the other user by key alone. You can keep a local list of "friends" with levels of trust.
      • What we need is a moderation system for shitty drivers (i.e. the 90 year blind, crippled, and deaf paraplegic who drives a "boat" from the 70's - or fuckin teenie-boppers on cell phones. . )
  • At the Grand Canyon:
    Buy Grand Canyon keychains!

    At the Bank:
    Make free money! Refinance now!

    In residential areas:
    (picture of sexy girl) Enlarge your penis now!

    At Disney World:
    Visit the gift shop now!
  • Yeah, well for this to work, your cell-phone/GPS would have to report your location to a central point. I know of quite some people who would love THAT!

    Not for me, thank you, I'd rather keep my privacy.

  • Once again the trees of penury have crowded out the forest of freedom and democracy. Once again the need to slosh throught the thicket of misinformation, carving out a trail of truth, comes about.

    For many businesses, it will be a marketing dream come true. Retailers will be falling over themselves to bombard people passing their doors with targeted come-ons... But it will also work the other way round, enabling you to find what you want.
    In other words: rejoice! Not only will it businesses be able to bombard you with ads, consumers will have even more opportunity to be immersed in the advertiing they love so much! Huzzah!

    But the prospect of every place on Earth being crammed with invisible electronic notes, ...conjures the spectre of an information traffic jam... Crouch isn't unduly worried... It is largely a question of managing hardware and being very careful about balancing loads between servers
    In other words, the problem isn't the intellectual moise pollution of a million billion advertisements floating in the air, the problem is potential server loads and lag times! Well, I for one COULD NOT CARE LESS how long the latest Pizza Hut jingle takes to download on my cell phone!!

    I REALLY like this part:A universal open messaging system also raises questions about privacy and the reliability of information. Unscrupulous merchants may attach scurrilous messages about their competitors... Crouch and his colleagues... say the prototypes they are running will help them deal with the problems of privacy and security.
    That is too funny. Obviously, the "scurrilous" messages referred too will also include any "sublvertive", anti-establishment, or otherwise non-mainstream (read non business-related) messages. It will be interesting the hail of lawsuits that result when dstrong, free geeks attempt to use this system for their own purposes...

    And finally, this howler: There are some very simple mechanisms that can restrict who gets to post you a message, and who gets to read the ones you write, they say. You could, for instance, join a paid service that would scrutinise messages and guarantee their authenticity and usefulness
    Oh man, that is TOOOO FUUUNNNNYYY!!! You have to PAY to not receive SPAM on your GPS! It seems the right to not be constantly harrassed by nuisance mesages is now for sale to the highest bidder.

    This usiness of buying and selling the air is just madness.It's almost enough to make you wonder if federal regulation might mot be a good thing. I do, however, have faith that strong, free geeks will discover ways to divert this wave of greed-induced information diaorrhea.

  • Nothing really new here, except for tying the information into a web server rather than a local DB.

    The concept certainly has its uses. For example, an aviation GPS system linked to a digital elevation model of the terrain will warn you if you're currently flying at an altitude lower than some of the rocks in the area. That can be helpful. Ditto for warning about restricted airspace, or dangerous areas while backpacking or boating (eg old mine shafts, possible dangerous concentrations of volcanic gasses, old toxic waste dumps, etc, etc.)

    The web connection allows for dynamic updating of the data, which is cool, it also means you don't need to carry the whole database around with you.

    Of course the advertising/spam aspect is a real down side. And just wait till they start building the stuff into everything: do you really want your digital camera telling you there's a Kodak Picture Point coming up?
  • Just imagine if this were free.... goatse.cx links are just the beginning!
  • I percieve the system to be an open message board, but more intrusive and perhaps more relevant/tied to the real world.

    Like slashdot, I think that the system would be used to post a hell of a lot of crap, ASCII art spam etc.... but with some nuggets.

    Where slashdot suceeds is that users can moderate, metamoderate and filter out the crap. Unless this system is capable of similar checks, it would be doomed to failure as it filled with garbage and then spammed everone with it....

    Long live CoolTown. Long live CTNotes. Long live Alistair Mann!!!
  • how soon before companies start trying to own their coords.
    you cant say anything negative about this location!
  • So now when we wander over pristine territory we can get inundated with "first post" messages from the usual cretins. At least they'll be wandering around the planet with GPS units and will have less time to infest slashdot. Maybe we can look forward to the occasional 'first post' adventurer getting eaten by a wild animal.
  • Why don't we have an ipv6 subnet that is allocated for the purpose of GPS-coordinate based 'websites'?
  • This seems to be taking geocaching to the next level. Geocaching [geocaching.com] is a GPS treasure hunt. People leave little tupperware containers and ammo boxes full of trinkets, disposable cameras and a notepad at specified coordinates then report those coordinates to geocaching.com in order for other people to find them, write down who they are and when they were there and take something from the cache and leave something of their own. It is something to do with your GPS recvr and the family - and its fun :)
  • Wasn't Douglas Adam's trying to work out something like this?
  • GPS has an accuracy of around ~5 feet so in order to ensure that a message was delivered to any particular spot, one would need to broadcast the message for a radius of 5 ft around the destination spot. This means that at most, messages would have to have a 5 ft buffer. In order to make it give atleast, a 50-50 chance of encounter the message within the buffer space, the message would need to be broadcast for a space with a radius of about 12.5 ft. Add the 5 ft buffer and you end up with a circle with a diameter of 35 ft.

    So, I don't think you'll see a new message every couple feet. 35ft blocks are pretty big, and statistically, that would still only give you a 50-50 chance of actually hearing the message.

    • Re:Accuracy of GPS (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Tazzy531 ( 456079 )
      Who said that any one spot could only contain one message? It could contain multiple messages. In other words, these circles could overlap.
    • GPS alone has an circular error of 15 meters, or about 50 feet. With WAAS augmentation, that drops to 3 meters, or about 10 feet. WAAS only applies to the US, and southern parts of Canada. here [garmin.com] for all the details.
  • Think about it....ICANN or whovever telling the real homeless people to "move along" and give up the cyber squat address!

    I love the irony of this....some bum with a shopping cart and a small PalmVII "cyber squatting" in front of the new Seahawks stadium with disparaging remarks for all passers by.....

    These new homeless cyber squatters could collect change through "Pay-Pal" and use it to order "Night-train" without ever leaving their corner!

    I imagine there would be the usual trouble with "agressive websites" that go a little further than just asking for you to "one-click" a bottle of MD-20/20 for them. And how about the targeted demographics for attractive female passers-by....What would these new cyber-homeless use for cookies?

    Oh the fun it would be!
  • What I wonder is how, if this comes about, the phone companies will handle it. On the one side it would be *nice* to be able to cram commercial junk into consumers orifices, as provided by the highest bidder, but on the other hand if the system is completely devoid of any kind of filter, consumer acceptance will be zero (imagine *not* being able to shut it off ... *shudder*). The commercial opportunity of the era ... and they just can't ... quite ... grasp ... it.

    I say (and I've said it before) - I'd set my filter to "Kevin Bacon", just for the insider-joke value.

  • Real-world /. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tylerdave ( 58777 )
    Think about it:
    All postings to this GPS system get moderated (and then the moderations get meta-moderated of course). The higher a message is modded, the higher priority it is, or perhaps the more space it occupies.

  • How this would work in the world (Score:5, Interesting)

    by maggard ( 5579 ) <michael@michaelmaggard.com> on Sunday January 20, 2002 @08:03PM (#2874048) Homepage Journal
    First of all folks seem to think this would somehow be embedded in GPS - it wouldn't be. Nor would there necessarily be a canonical database of these, rather folks would likely subscribe or otherwise get access to many databases.

    Your phone company might offer one as a premie for use with the phone. Of course it would likely have all of the restrictions that a phone company would impose (basically no content but for hotlinks to merchants and a few public services websites.)

    Your local mainstream and alternative papers might offer their own with reviews and schedules and of course links. Stand in front of a bus stop and see its schedule, wander in front of a theater and see the show times and buy them with a click. Walk into a store and you can look up their advert or just get dumped to their website (or whoever paid for those coordinates on that database.)

    Business and schools would use these to tag their own space. There'd likely be an IS database with notes on the hardware closet one is next to, directions for following a cable run through the building. University students would doubtless have their own databases with tips for which corners are good for sex and that the pizza in that cafe is rumored to have rat bits.

    Credit cards would likely love these. Use Amex and you'd have access to the Amex database listing only merchants who take their cards and likely a copy of the Zagats guide or something.

    Sure lots of graffiti could be a problem in some public databases, as with intrusive or inappropriate advertising. That's why I expect to see multiple databases with some sort of pruning or content enforcement mechanism (heck, /. moderation for tags.) The same as the web the useful ones would flourish, the others wither away, and need to find a funding source.

    We've already seen something like this for the web. I've lost track of their names but a few years ago there was a spate of plugins that would allow folks to annotate webpages. If you had BrandA plugin when you went to a webpage with a note "attached" it could appear superimposed. They weren't actually on the webpage but served from the plugin's host database and left by other visitors. There was much outcry but what really killed the whole thing was the graffiti.

    However I expect that there are ways around the graffiti problem (paying folks to keep the database clean or even moderation, and of course commercial ones) and we could see space tagging work be a breakthrough product for phones.

    My own list of dream apps:

    • Restaurant reviews from the local papers
    • Traffic news relevant to my location
    • Public transit schedules from where I'm standing or the nearest station/stop with estimated times & delay notification
    • Find the nearest ATM on my network
    • Browse the website of the store I'm in and easily jump to their competition down the street's website
    • Advertise my need for a cab to my location and see who shows up first
    • Maintain a list of personal notes attached to places: Where we first kissed, the salesperson I liked here was "Sue" etc.
    • Share notes with my friends & family: The chocolate mousse in this place is gelatinous...
    • Stand outside a bar or sit on a train and look up if anyone I like has listed themselves as being nearby (by their choice on our circle-of-friends tagsite.)
    Again, these wouldn't all be in big public databases but in a variety, some general public others subscription and some private.

  • Now you can get black market stuff/drugs without halving to visit a dealer or them halving to know you. You walk arround with your cell phone (perpaid for privacy, of course, and with it's own stash of digital cash) When you get near the drug drop, it will indicate you are in a buying area and will allow you to put your digital cash in escro, upon payment you will get detailed instructions of how to get the stash and you will be prompted to release escro upon inspection.

    For insurance measure, the stash could be connected to an acid/poison/ink discharge device triggered by it's own cellphone that would destroy the commodity if not approved.

    Just a thought.

  • to prevent spammage (Score:4, Interesting)

    by redhotchil ( 44670 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @08:38PM (#2874131) Homepage Journal
    why not implement a system like everything2 + gps?

  • A version of this already exists (Score:3, Informative)

    by tunari ( 187534 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @08:52PM (#2874165)
    Check out confluence.org [confluence.org], where people can post photos and descriptions of every long. lat. combination on the globe.
  • I mean, sure, it may have application somewhere...
    but is everyone going to have a PDA with a full time net connection & GPS, as well as audio/video capability? Because until we do, this is hype.

    And even then.. how hard is this? IF said device exists.. this is TRIVIAL. THey make it sound like 'new technology. It's not new.. it's OBVIOUS

    I'm sure someone has patented this great idea too.
  • "I farted here, 4:37pm CST, 11/06/02...enjoy!"
  • People already use GPS to retrieve navigational "messages" ("turn right here"), informational messages ("you are standing in front of the X"), messages during the maintenance of large structures ("the water pipe is 30ft ahead of you"), etc. Location-aware ads have been hyped in the valley for a few years. OK, so people update these databases a bit more dynamically, so what? This is just another instance of giving a fancy name to something that's been in common practice for years. I mean, what else would you use GPS for? Great sales job, boring technology.

    More interesting perhaps are location-dependent messages sent out by beacons that transmit information (via Bluetooth or IR) locally--you really have to be physically there to receive the information. And those kinds of systems actually happen to be a little easier to deploy, since handhelds already have IR (and soon Bluetooth) built-in, while GPS is still an expensive option.

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