The end of a calendar year is traditionally a time to reflect on past events and speculate on future trends. As in other rapidly evolving technology areas, developments in the geospatial industry usually outpace the dreams of all but the most imaginative and savvy futurists. I have been fascinated by maps and charts for more than three decades, have been using electronic navigation tools (first RDF, then Loran, and then GPS) for more than two decades and have been writing about geospatial technologies for nearly a decade. As I look ahead, I wish for a single personal navigation device (PND) that incorporates all the most useful navigation features already available on various devices.
In the past few years, personal digital assistants (PDAs), cell phones, digital cameras, and PNDs have been merging into what are now called “smart phones,” so I will assume that to be the platform of choice.
- Display. By cell phone standards, touch screens such as that on my Sprint Instinct, made by Samsung, are very large — because they obviate the need for a keyboard and other hardware buttons. Still, they are too small to use safely while driving. Voice prompts partially compensate for this, but visual cues are still essential. I would like a feature that is already available on some GPS-based car navigation systems: Automatic zooming. As you slow down, in a congested area, the device zooms in, so that you can see every street; as you speed up, on a major road or freeway, it zooms out, so that you can keep track of your general location. I would like even better a head-up display, projected onto the windshield by a device connected to the phone. Ultimately, though, what I would really like is a hologram, displaying my surroundings and the road ahead in 3D!
- Satellite imagery. On my DeLorme Earthmate GPS PN-40, I can upload and display satellite imagery as a map layer. This is an extremely useful feature that I would like to have on any PND. Smart phones are approaching the processor speed and memory size required to enable this.
- Web cams. I would like to be able to choose a location on a map and connect to the nearest Web cam, so as to see what is happening there, in real time, on my phone’s screen.
- Multiple data streams. On my phone, I can view traffic conditions in real time. I would like to be able to do the same for weather, re-routing due to construction work, etc. — by selecting my present location or another one on a map. Additionally, I would like to be able to set alarms to alert me when certain events — such as ice on the road — occur in areas I routinely traverse or am about to traverse on my present route.
- Geo-fencing. I would like to be able to draw a boundary on a map on my phone (or create a buffer around me, by specifying a radius) and use it to trigger alerts — for example, when an elderly relative strays outside the area or a friend enters it. Of course, the relative or friend would have to be carrying GPS-enabled phones and agree to be monitored this way.
- Multiple navigation systems. GPS receivers work well when they have a clear view of the sky, poorly in urban or natural canyons, and not at all indoors. Assisted-GPS greatly speeds up positioning by using the cell phone network to give a GPS receiver its approximate location; however, if GPS signal reception is blocked, this position is not accurate enough to support most location-based services, let alone E-911. A system that uses wireless routers as “beacons of opportunity” works only in dense urban areas. One that uses television broadcast antennas the same way works well indoors and in suburban and rural areas but not in wilderness areas. Inertial navigation systems don’t require any external signal, so they work indoors, underwater, in tunnels, and under heavy canopy, but suffer from an unavoidable drift, which significantly degrades their accuracy over time and distance, so they need to be periodically re-initialized. My ideal PND would combine all of these systems — so that it would be highly accurate and reliable in all environments!
- Trip planning. From on-line maps to virtual malls, from Web sites that track gas station prices to software programs that instantly select the shortest route, trip planning and route optimization on a computer are easy. By contrast, they are hard to do on a cell phone’s small screen and limited browser. I would like to be able to plan my trip on my computer and then easily upload the turn-by-turn directions, distances, information about stops, etc. to my phone; alternatively, I would like to be able to store my trip information on a Web site and then access it using my phone’s browser.
- Pedestrian and bicycle navigation. Portland and Eugene, Oregon, Santa Monica, California, and other bike-friendly cities have maps on which streets are color-coded according to their suitability for biking. Portland has also produced walking maps and Google Maps has been experimenting with walking directions. Now I would like my phone to show me be the best routes on foot or by bicycle in any city.
- Location awareness. On my phone, I can select a business category — such as gas stations, restaurants, hotels, etc. — and a list appears, arranged in order by distance from me; I can then display all the entries on a map. That’s great. Now I would also like to be able to do the reverse: display all the points of interest within, say, half a mile, of my location, to help me understand my options. (Some filtering may be necessary, to avoid excessive clutter.) I would also like to be able to select a point on the map and get information about it — such as the address — with pop-up tags and, now that geotagging has become common, I would like to be able to easily search for, say, videos made at a given location, or RSS feeds that originate there. Finally, I’d like to be able to search on multiple criteria — such as campgrounds within a mile of a boat ramp.
- Breadcrumbs. At times, I want to track my own movements — on a bike ride, say, or a series of errands — for fun or to study and optimize the routes I take. On most hand-held GPS receivers I can enable tracking and set the frequency of the data points by either time (for example, every ten seconds or every five minutes) or distance (for example, every hundred feet or every mile). The total time or distance for which the device can memorize my track depends on this setting and how much memory it has; on receivers that take flash memory cards, the latter is limitless. I would like my phone to do the same. In fact, it could upload my data points to a server or even display my track on a Web site in real time. Obviously, effective privacy controls would be essential. The system could analyze my travels for occasional improvements — such as when I take a shortcut or choose a street with fewer stop signs — or errors — such as when I am stuck at a closed railroad crossing for a long time, while taking an underpass a few blocks away would have avoided the problem — and help me optimize my route the next time.
- Sensor Web. There are hundreds of types of tiny sensors that can measure variables ranging from temperature to the presence of volatile organic compounds, from noise level to air pressure, from wind speed to UV radiation. In all industrialized countries and many developing ones, where there are people there are cell phones. All cell phones are linked to the Internet, regardless of whether they have Web browsers. These three facts enable a World Wide Sensor Web that could give us unprecedented real-time information about the state of the world. If I suffered from asthma, I would like my phone to plot a route through areas with the lowest pollen counts. If I wanted to listen to the birds instead of traffic or construction noise, I could use decibels as a routing criterion. If I hated crowds or wanted to find one, I could instead use the density of cell phones. The possibilities are endless.
Happy holidays!
By: Matteo Luccio, President, Pale Blue Dot Research, Writing, and Editing, LLC
