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RogerS is offline RogerS
02-13-2008 , 01:44 PM
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#1
When I wrote last week that we need a people-friendly GPS, I really didn't have any idea how this might work.

I just know that we need something that works better than the people-unfriendly GPS that we have now.

I have thought about the domain-name registrars and domain-name servers of the internet — every website gets a specific device-friendly numeric IP address but people don't use those numbers. They use the URI. (Well, think about it: internettablettalk.com is way easier to remember than 74.86.202.247).

Why don't we do the same thing for GPS locations?

Why can't I put in a name and have a GPS name server (GPS-NS) look up the specific latitude and longitude the way it works with the web?

OK, it shouldn't be slavishly the same. I live in Montclair, NJ, and I would want some parameter to default to "locations near Montclair" when I put them in. So I could enter "Starbucks" and a star would appear at 572 Valley Road, without my having to enter "Starbucks-Montclair-ValleyRoad". And, yes, Starbucks Corp. would register the "Starbucks" GPS the same way it registered "starbucks.com". And just as that site has a "starbucks.com/ourcoffees/" page, it could set up the names for each of its locations.

And, heck, maybe I have to download the GPS-NS table to my device and update it daily or weekly. Maybe it's extremely detailed only for a specified area, not the whole world. So I can put in "Golden Gate Bridge" or "Sugarloaf" because those are level-1 locations, but not "Starbucks-Brazil-Rio de Janeiro-Ipanema". (Unless I say, "Get me Brazil too.")

I expect software would let me filter results too, so that if I entered a name like Xanadu that is used in different states/countries in different types of business, I'd see only the few possible entries — the restaurant near me and not the surfboard designer in San Diego, the clothing store in Milwaukee or the restaurant in Baltimore.

Well, just thinking aloud . . .
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Texrat's Avatar
Texrat is offline Texrat
02-13-2008 , 02:00 PM
Posts: 7,862 | Thanked: 2,856 times | Joined on Jun 2006 @ /hell/handbasket
#2
Actually, why couldn't it work like Google? No need for another registration system!

Imagine your GPS device also connected to the Internet (no big advent there). Imagine that clicks-and-bricks operators include their locations' latitude/longitude/elevation/etc info along with phone number, street address, etc. You run an internet search for Starbucks and filter by GPS coordinates from results returned (that could even be a front-end selection). Your GPS location would be a default input. The result set contains hits sectioned off by distance groupings (within 5 kilometers, within 6 to 10 k, etc).

IMO that would be an easy way to implement this without requiring additional infrastructure. There could be other meta data (specials of the day, movie listings and show times, etc) included as well.

All this idea requires is a campaign...

EDIT: heck, some of the groundwork was laid down 4 years ago. An XML standard for GPS data. Duh! Why didn't I think of that before? http://www.topografix.com/gpx.asp
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Last edited by Texrat; 02-13-2008 at 02:04 PM.
 
steelmaverick is offline steelmaverick
02-13-2008 , 02:08 PM
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#3
That may also be a bad idea, because of the big brother possibilities. What if you had to register your device, or if your device had to be given an "IP" address?

I'm all for having GPS-NS for commercial purposes, but the personal tracking thing is just not my thing. The government could actually do this today with your cellphone, but at least you can remove your cellphone's battery.
 
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Texrat is offline Texrat
02-13-2008 , 02:13 PM
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#4
I foresee the day when devices will be "better" tracked anyway, good bad or indifferent. But steelmaverick brings up a good point... another reason why a one-way GPS method might be the better way to go.

I'm seriously thinking about forming a campaign around this... just gotta think about it first. We could pick one retailer first (like Starbucks, a good choice actually) and encourage them to use the GPX standard with their location data (see link in my post above). Thoughts?
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sgosnell is offline sgosnell
02-13-2008 , 02:21 PM
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#5
GPS is designed to be a standalone navigation system. It's not designed as a web-based driving direction system. The earth is a sphere, more or less, and GPS (the G does stand for GLOBAL) is designed to show a location anywhere on the earth - land, sea, or in the air. There are no addresses in the middle of the ocean, or the desert, or the arctic. Driving directions have nothing to do with GPS, but there are software packages that use GPS or a web app to generate them. WGS84 is the standard model for location, using latitude and longitude, the same system used for centuries. If you can't handle latitude and longitude, then I'm sorry, you'll have to come up with something on your own. It's just not that hard to understand lat/lon. If you want a standard method, try this geocoding site. They came up with a universal address system long ago, but virtually nobody uses it. Maybe it will work for you.
 
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Texrat is offline Texrat
02-13-2008 , 02:26 PM
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#6
sgosnell, you seem to be missing Roger's essential point. He wants to leverage that lat/long data into something greater. I agree with him. It shouldn't be that hard to do, either.
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2bithacker is offline 2bithacker
02-13-2008 , 02:39 PM
Posts: 1 | Thanked: 2 times | Joined on Feb 2008
#7
This could be accomplished using the existing Internet DNS infrastructure with the LOC record type as described in RFC 1876.

For example, yahoo.com has a LOC record:
Code:
> dig yahoo.com LOC +short
37 23 30.900 N 121 59 19.000 W 7.00m 100m 100m 2m
You could use this to return multiple LOC records, say for a chain of stores. Your GPS client could query for all LOC records for starbucks.com, and get back a list of the locations of each store, the client could then do distant calculations from it's current location and present the user with the closest Starbucks.

Of course, that would be a huge number of records, so it might make sense to localize using subdomains, such as "nh.us.starbucks.com" to only get the locations of stores in NH, USA.

The technology is out there, someone just needs to utilize it.
 

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Texrat is offline Texrat
02-13-2008 , 02:58 PM
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#8
I was just thinking the same thing, 2bit. Bottom line, existing infrastructure CAN be leveraged-- it's just a matter of meta data.
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djasmith is offline djasmith
02-13-2008 , 06:14 PM
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#9
Hello

I guess a system whereby a gps device can have its position recorded with the devices IMEI or some other identifier and then have this detail pushed over the web to some database etc . . .

TwitterVision has a similar method of associating Lat/Long with labels.

I've been using Twibble on my N95 to push updates and co-ordinates to my Twitter feed as of late.

ttfn

Dave
 
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CyberCat is offline CyberCat
02-14-2008 , 02:00 PM
Posts: 218 | Thanked: 69 times | Joined on Jan 2008 @ /dev/null
#10
Ahem, uh, actually we already have this. It's called Google Maps, Map Quest, or Yahoo Maps.

Seriously, you type in the name of what you want, it shows you. Having your business added to their database is free. Isn't this exactly what you're talking about?
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