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Mid-Air Messages To Your Mobile

Posted by timothy on from the where-are-you dept.

wilfie writes "Mid-air messages are content for delivery to handheld devices which is relevant to the user's current location. A serious trial of a system for delivering mid-air messages is to be financed by the UK government in the City of Bristol, according to an article on the BBC website. The article refers to the Annotate Space project doing something similar in New York. The Bristol scheme looks like being a guide for tourists, but what other kinds of content would we welcome, and what would we not? Would we even be willing to pay for it?"

5 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. I can see it now... by FortKnox · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm walking in a park when all of a sudden my cell phone catches a distress beacon...

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    Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
  2. spam. by Zeppelingb · · Score: 5, Funny

    You have 45677987 new messages

  3. Advertising. by Sliptonic · · Score: 5, Funny

    I, for one, would like to know when I'm close to some place that I can buy an X10 camera.

  4. Privacy issues forgotten? by sh!va · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A big issue to doing something like this, which was pointed out to me by some researchers in a company I interned for, pertained to the amount of information about you that is required for such a system to function but still maintain your privacy.
    For example, a mid-air system that delivers messages to you while you're in a certain area can also figure out where you are at what time on what day, simply by aggregating this information in one place. The researchers that I talked to worked around this (they were using GPS) by making the exact co-ordinates fuzzy and increasing the resolution from a few meters to a few miles. Thus you can't exactly tell where a person was at a certain time.
    However, in the article, the researchers are using bluetooth, which doesn't leave out much in the way of destroying location information. Which consequently means that the Government, or any company with enough money could come in, aggregate this information and track the devices that are mid-air message enabled. (and if we assume that people aren't going to be swapping cell phones every few minutes, then we can track the people themselves)

  5. Several ideas... by MH · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Of course, the main one is what the article mentioned...reviews of different things. You could be in an unfamiliar city, walking through trying to find a good restaurant. In front of one, you bring up the service, and it tells you different things people posted ("Don't get the clam chowder!!! It's death in a bowl!", "The fries are great!").

    Another thing would be interesting sites or things to look for. For example, you're drinking in an old bar, you bring up the service and can view different messages like "This bar caught fire in 1938. See the charred board behind the bar on the right-hand side? They left that as a reminder." or you're at a scenic turn-off in the mountains you might get "If you look to the north-west, you might be able to see the skyline of [insert city]."

    Of course there's the whole advertising thing, but depending on how it's setup, it could be a good thing. Walk into a store, get virtual coupons or something.

    Something else that could be kinda fun would be a graffiti board of some type...probably have numerous problems, but c'est la vie.

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    --mh