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Writing Messages In Empty Space With GPS

Posted by timothy on 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.

10 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. Time limit to weed out junk by kenneth_martens · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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.

  2. Re:This will never happen by garcia · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  3. Re:GPS in Cell Phones by isorox · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

  4. Pirates, or Couch Pirates? by Transient0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

    --
    lysergically yours
  5. Real-world /. by tylerdave · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  6. interesting by lukecs · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Many of you think that this would just be when you are at the point the GPS system has "tagged" . Rather I precieve this as an oppurtunity to have interavtive maps. Imagine you are visiting a city. Rather than having to look on the internet to find hotels and attractions you could visit a GPS mapping site and you could simply click on the hotel and go to its GPS web site. A global interavtive map that allows you to surf the world. Now just imagine you are driving down the highway and you pull out your PDA, that has built in GPS and this new technology imbedded into it. You want to go to a resturant and as you pass by them you check out their web pages on your PDA. Now you are on your way to visit some friends, but you forget your friends husbands name. hmmm pull out your interactive map click on their house and look at their web site. The possibilities for tourism are endless. Technology is advancing to the wireless age and this would be a huge step in that direction.

  7. How this would work in the world by maggard · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.

    --
    I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
  8. Re:Among the people who didn't notice it the first by redcliffe · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe that should be a new feature of slashcode. An automatic searcher thingy that would look for similiar articles and warn the editor that is a similiar article and allow them to view it. It would search on URL's keywords and title.

  9. to prevent spammage by redhotchil · · Score: 4, Interesting

    why not implement a system like everything2 + gps?

  10. Re:I don't like it... by evilWurst · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.