Blogfade and Android Mobile

First of all I must apologise for the Blogfade. Over the last few weeks I’ve bought a new house and sold my own one which has caused a lot of stress and taken a lot of my time. Assuming that my sale goes through tomorrow, I wil be moving this weekend and life will get back to normal.

I’ve been busy on a lot of projects lately, one of which has been working on developing channels for GeoVector’s World Surfer product.

Worldsurfer is a location based application that runs on iPhone 3GS and Android mobiles which incorporate both GPS and Compass, which opens up a whole new world of possibilities.I have to say that even though the G1 I’m using currently is 1st generation Android, the combination of GPS and Compass is remarkably accurate. I suspect it is also using cell tower triangulation. It has my street address exactly correct even though I am inside my lounge, whereas my old phone using just Vodafone cell towers had my kitchen in one suburb and my lounge in another and I assure you my house is not that big.

The concept for this solution is that it provides for Location Based ‘Channels’ which allow you to search for Points of Interest based on your present location. A Channel is typically a category of POI (Points of Interest).

On the G1 that I am using at the moment I have the New Zealand channels that are currently available here. The first is GeoSmart, for whom I am the Sales & Marketing Manager.

GeoSmart is the company providing API’s, web services and web maps behind many leading web sites in NZ and services in many other countries. The best known site is AA Maps, which also now features real time traffic covering all of New Zealand. The GeoSmart Channel on Worldsurfer for NZ includes a nationwide set of categories and subcategories currently covering Accomodation,  Banks and ATM’s, Entertainment, Parks and Gardens, Pubs Taverns and Bars, Restaurants, Takeaway Food and Public Toilets.

You can set it to only look in a band in the direction you are pointing your phone or in a 360 degree radius from your current location and it will locate POI up to 5 miles / 8km away. So in effect you can look for a Japanese Restaurant in the direction you are currently travelling. When you select one, the compass will point you in the direction of that venue and show a running distance calculation as you travel towards it.

You then have the option to call them for a reservation with one touch of the screen, get turn by turn directions and a map to guide you, mark the location for future reference, check Flickr, YouTube or Google for more information about the location.

World Surfer is as it sounds an international product and will automatically open the options available for the country you are in. Some are subscription channels whilst others are available free of charge.

Other channels available in New Zealand currently are Google, Zenbu, Wikipedia (which looks for information by location, based on pointing your mobile), Starbucks, and Vodafone Stores. I am currently working on developing many more channels for NZ. There are other exciting projects on the way, but if I tell you what they are, I’d be in big trouble, so watch this space.

As a footnote, I’ve said before that I would like to create an application called Where’s My Car, because everyone has a story of not being able to remember where they parked their car. I often see people in shopping mall car parks, at rugby matches and other spots wandering up and down trying to figure out where their cars are. When I got this Android phone (on loan) I found an application called CarDar Light.

This application lets you ‘mark’ the location of your car as you park it and will then guide you, even inside a car park, to your car. You can enter the level number or colour of the floor as an assist, but after that you will never lose your car again.

For a demonstration of WorldSurfer check out the YouTube video below:

Another step of the future which pretty much dates back to the original Star Trek TV programmes has become not only reality, but is becoming mainstream. Now to get the company to buy me that iPhone 3GS!

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GPS Tracking of Elderly People Update and Orcon Update

First of all I’d like to give you a quick update on the personal tracking unit I’ve been testing. It’s going really well. Please note I do not work for the company who is developing it, although if they go to market they will be using our mapping data, which I have been testing it with.

So I have tried it out in various parts of the country and it can track me wherever I go. If you had the logon and password to my account you could see where I have been on a map. You can play back my travels around Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. When I was in my car you could see emergancy button

how fast I was driving and my exact route.

If I hit the red emergency button a text message gets sent to a phone (in this case mine). I had it sent to my wife when I first set it up because then she cpould see what I was up to and I thought that would be interesting. Stupid really because I couldn’t see if it was working and she was geting really worried because on some days she would get lots of messages saying that I had an emergency.

Basically the message gives my name and says I had an emergency. If I was inside at the time I sent the emergancy it gives the last known street address, which is usually the correct address because it has a movement sensor and will take a fix every time the device moves which obviously was set off last time I got out of the car. It uses the GeoSmart Reverse GeoCoder to retrieve the nearest street address to the co-ordinates where it was taken. The reason it gives the last address, is because with current satellite technology it can’t get a fix inside the house unless I am in an optimal position. This will of course improve when the Gallileo

It operates as a phone so a call centre can call me if they think there is a problem. It also can function as a phone with a number of preset buttons, which is great for elderly people who only have a few people they need to ring and find mobiles confusing.

A footnote on Orcon, I got a call today saying that they are onto it this time. They said the engineers that have been visiting don’t have sophisticated enough test gear to test a phone line for interference that wouldn’t affect phones and event ordinary ADSL. So hopefully I will see an engineer, at least this time they phoned me:)

GPS Tracking for Elderly People and others

I recently posted a blog on this topic which has proven quite popular. It appears that there are many people concerned about the safety of people when they are away from their home. There are already products such as Lifelink from St Johns which are excellent products around the house, but there are many people looking for products to help out when people are out of range of their home.

Having had yet another call from one of many companies looking at bringing in products from China and other parts I have decided to check one out for myself. The one I am going to check out is one that has gone through a number of refinements which will probably make it a little more expensive, but possibly far more beneficial as well. I won’t mention any brands yet, but what I like about this product includes:

• A drop sensor. If the devices falls or the person carrying it in their pocket, or perhaps around their necks, falls, as elderly people sometimes do, it will set of an alarm which will call someone and send them a message.
• A panic button which can allow the device to send an emergency signal to a predetermined location if there is a problem and the person needs assistance.
• A microphone and speaker so that not only can the person send an emergancy message but they can talk to a call centre or their help service.
• The ability to call up to 3 predetermined numbers and talk to the person at the other end.

These services also include the ability for authorised people to view the location of the device, i.e. the person carrying it, on a map from anywhere that they can access an internet browser.

If this product is as good as the supplier says, it will have huge value for a variety of services including, elderly or infirm people, children, people with severe allergies or other potential health problems, people in risky careers such as security guards or investigators, or even police as well as services such as mental health nurses and midwives who are helping people in the community.

By having a combination of a SIM card with GPRS and SMS capabaility as well as speech, any wearer can be located on a map and can also be in voice contact where necessary. Obviously as these devices prove their worth, their popularity will increase and consequently prices will come down. Because they are portable they can also be used on an ad hoc basis or in a pooled environment to be shared.

I’ll let you know how my pilot goes.