There is a world of information that we can't immediately see in the streets we walk and drive in, and in the buildings in which we work, play and live. The great potential of the mobile web – whether it is delivered by smart phone, automobile navigation system, or other device – is to reveal this hidden world to us, by adding geospatial and timing data to the user experience. In this way, the mobile web is poised to become the delivery mechanism for a new generation of location-aware applications.
Geo-specific information will enable real connections between the digital world and the physical one, so that people can freely interact with virtual data in real spaces. An old friend from out of town is at the restaurant down the block right now; your dry cleaner is closing early due to the holiday, but he has your suit ready; and an apartment in the building you're passing by just went on the market. As location-based mobile products and services increase in popularity, all these pieces of data become immediately knowable and useable in real time.
Location-based data has the ability to not only enhance the communication, productivity, and entertainment applications for which we regularly use mobile devices, but also to create a new hybrid experience at the intersection of real and virtual worlds. This mobile geospatial web will allow the information and imagination that runs freely in cyberspace, to become increasingly available and integrated in our physical space – and with that comes both possibilities and problems.
The world as the interface: location data and the mobile web
Monday November 17, 2008There is a world of information that we can't immediately see in the streets we walk and drive in, and in the buildings in which we work, play and live. The great potential of the mobile web – whether it is delivered by smart phone, automobile navigation system, or other device – is to reveal this hidden world to us, by adding geospatial and timing data to the user experience. In this way, the mobile web is poised to become the delivery mechanism for a new generation of location-aware applications.
Geo-specific information will enable real connections between the digital world and the physical one, so that people can freely interact with virtual data in real spaces. An old friend from out of town is at the restaurant down the block right now; your dry cleaner is closing early due to the holiday, but he has your suit ready; and an apartment in the building you're passing by just went on the market. As location-based mobile products and services increase in popularity, all these pieces of data become immediately knowable and useable in real time.
Location-based data has the ability to not only enhance the communication, productivity, and entertainment applications for which we regularly use mobile devices, but also to create a new hybrid experience at the intersection of real and virtual worlds. This mobile geospatial web will allow the information and imagination that runs freely in cyberspace, to become increasingly available and integrated in our physical space – and with that comes both possibilities and problems.
Read more at the Vodafone Receiver Magazine.
Posted in Location-based |