The impact and penetration of location-based services

Since the invention of digital technology, its development has followed an entrenched path ofminiaturisation and decentralisation with increasing focus on individual and niche applications. Computerhardware has moved from remote centres to desktop and hand held devices whilst being embedded invarious material infrastructures. Software has followed the same course. The entire process has convergedon a path where various analogue devices have become digital and are increasingly being embedded inmachines at the smallest scale. In a parallel but essential development, there has been a convergence ofcomputers with communications ensuring that the delivery and interaction mechanisms for computersoftware is now focused on networks of individuals, not simply through the desktop, but in mobilecontexts. Various inert media such as fixed television is becoming more flexible as computers and visualmedia are becoming one.With such massive convergence and miniaturisation, new software and new applications define the cuttingedge. As computers are being increasingly tailored to individual niches, then new digital services areemerging, many of which represent applications which hitherto did not exist or at best were rarely focusedon a mass market. Location based services form one such application and in this paper, we will bothspeculate on and make some initial predictions of the geographical extent to which such services willpenetrate different markets. We define such services in detail below but suffice it to say at this stage thatsuch functions involve the delivery of traditional services using digital media and telecommunications.High profile applications are now being focused on hand held devices, typically involving information onproduct location and entertainment but wider applications involve fixed installations on the desktop whereservices are delivered through traditional fixed infrastructure. Both wire and wireless applications definethis domain. The market for such services is inevitably volatile and unpredictable at this early stage but wewill attempt here to provide some rudimentary estimates of what might happen in the next five to tenyears.The ?network society? which has developed through this convergence, is, according to Castells (1989,2000) changing and re-structuring the material basis of society such that information has come todominate wealth creation in a way that information is both a raw material of production and an outcome ofproduction as a tradable commodity. This has been fuelled by the way technology has expanded followingMoore?s Law and by fundamental changes in the way telecommunications, finance, insurance, utilitiesand so on is being regulated. Location based services are becoming an integral part of this fabric and thesereflect yet another convergence between geographic information systems, global positioning systems, andsatellite remote sensing. The first geographical information system, CGIS, was developed as part of theCanada Land Inventory in 1965 and the acronym ?GIS? was introduced in 1970. 1971 saw the firstcommercial satellite, LANDSAT-1. The 1970s also saw prototypes of ISDN and mobile telephone and theintroduction of TCP/IP as the dominant network protocol. The 1980s saw the IBM XT (1982) and thebeginning of de-regulation in the US, Europe and Japan of key sectors within the economy. Finally in the 1990s, we saw the introduction of the World Wide Web and the ubiquitous pervasion of business andrecreation of networked PC?s, the Internet, mobile communications and the growing use of GPS forlocational positioning and GIS for the organisation and visualisation of spatial data. By the end of the 20thcentury, the number of mobile telephone users had reached 700 million worldwide. The increasingmobility of individuals, the anticipated availability of broadband communications for mobile devices andthe growing volumes of location specific information available in databases will inevitably lead to thedemand for services that will deliver location related information to individuals on the move. Suchlocation based services (LBS) although in a very early stage of development, are likely to play anincreasingly important part in the development of social structures and business in the coming decades.In this paper we begin by defining location based services within the context we have just sketched. Wethen develop a simple model of the market for location-based services developing the standard non-linearsaturation model of market penetration. We illustrate this for mobile devices, namely mobile phones in thefollowing sections and then we develop an analysis of different geographical regimes which arecharacterised by different growth rates and income levels worldwide. This leads us to speculate on theextent to which location based services are beginning to take off and penetrate the market. We concludewith scenarios for future growth through the analogy of GIS and mobile penetration

Spatial ability, urban wayfinding and location-based services:a review and first results

Location-Based Services (LBS) are a new industry at the core of which are GISand spatial databases. With increasing mobility of individuals, the anticipatedavailability of broadband communications for mobile devices and growingvolumes of location specific information available in databases there willinevitably be an increase in demand for services providing location relatedinformation to people on the move. New Information and CommunicationTechnologies (NICTs) are providing enhanced possibilities for navigating ?smartcities?. Urban environments, meanwhile, have increasing spatial complexity.Navigating urban environments is becoming an important issue. The time is ripefor a re-appraisal of urban wayfinding. This paper critically reviews the currentLBS applications and raises a series of questions with regard to LBS for urbanwayfinding. Research is being carried out to measure individuals? spatialability/awareness and their degree of preference for using LBS in wayfinding. Themethodology includes both the use of questionnaires and a virtual reality CAVE.Presented here are the results of the questionnaire survey which indicate therelationships between individuals? spatial ability, use of NICTs and modepreference for receiving wayfinding cues. Also discussed are our future researchdirections on LBS, particular on issues of urban wayfinding using NICTs

Mass-Market Receiver for Static Positioning: Tests and Statistical Analyses

Nowadays, there are several low cost GPS receivers able to provide both pseudorange and carrier phase measurements in the L1band, that allow to have good realtime performances in outdoor condition. The present paper describes a set of dedicated tests in order to evaluate the positioning accuracy in static conditions. The quality of the pseudorange and the carrier phase measurements let hope for interesting results. The use of such kind of receiver could be extended to a large number of professional applications, like engineering fields: survey, georeferencing, monitoring, cadastral mapping and cadastral road. In this work, the receivers performance is verified considering a single frequency solution trying to fix the phase ambiguity, when possible. Different solutions are defined: code, float and fix solutions. In order to solve the phase ambiguities different methods are considered. Each test performed is statistically analyzed, highlighting the effects of different factors on precision and accurac

Smart Geographic object: Toward a new understanding of GIS Technology in Ubiquitous Computing

One of the fundamental aspects of ubiquitous computing is the instrumentation of the real world by smart devices. This instrumentation constitutes an opportunity to rethink the interactions between human beings and their environment on the one hand, and between the components of this environment on the other. In this paper we discuss what this understanding of ubiquitous computing can bring to geographic science and particularly to GIS technology. Our main idea is the instrumentation of the geographic environment through the instrumentation of geographic objects composing it. And then investigate how this instrumentation can meet the current limitations of GIS technology, and offers a new stage of rapprochement between the earth and its abstraction. As result, the current research work proposes a new concept we named Smart Geographic Object SGO. The latter is a convergence point between the smart objects and geographic objects, two concepts appertaining respectively to

How Pennsylvania Can Meet Its Clean Power Plan Targets

This fact sheet examines how Pennsylvania can meet -- and even exceed -- its CPP standards through expanding its clean energy policies and making better use of existing power plants while minimizing compliance costs, ensuring reliability, and harnessing economic opportunities in clean energy. Pennsylvania's existing clean energy policies put the state's power plants in good position to make carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reductions that will help the state meet its CPP targets. Existing policies that promote renewable development and improve energy efficiency through 2020 -- 21 will help Pennsylvania meet its initial targets. If extended and expanded, these policies could provide a basis to meet the targets through 2030

Understanding the current trends in mobile crowdsensing - a business model perspective: case MyGeo Trust

Crowdsensing and personal data markets that have emerged around it have rapidly gained momentum in parallel with the appearance of mobile devices. Collecting information via mobile sensors and the applications relying on these, the privacy of mobile users can be threatened, especially in the case of location-related data. In 2015, a research project called MyGeoTrust was initiated to investigate this issue. One aim of the project was to study the potential business models for a trusted, open-source crowdsourcing platform. This study, carried within the MyGeoTrust project, reviews existing literature about business models, location-based services, and open-source software development. It then investigates the relationship between these topics and mobile crowdsensing. As a whole, this thesis provides an overview on the development of location-based services, as well as the current trends and business models in crowdsensing. The empirical part of the thesis employs embedded case study methodology, acquiring empirical data from several sources. The analyzed case is the MyGeoTrust project itself, and other empirical data is collected via market analysis, interim reports, a user survey, and semi-structured interviews. This material forms the baseline for the empirical study and project-specific recommendations. The findings suggest that creating a two- or multisided platform is the most robust business model for mobile crowdsensing. The identified benefits of platform-based business models include facilitating the value exchange between self-governing groups and possibilities to build positive network effects. This is especially the case with open-source software and open data since the key value for users - or “the crowd” in other terms - is created through network effects. In the context of open business models, strategic planning, principally licensing, plays a central role. Also, for a differentiated platform like MyGeoTrust finding the critical mass of users is crucial, in order to create an appealing alternative to current market leaders. Lastly, this study examines how transformational political or legal factors may shape the scene and create requirements for novel, privacy-perceiving solutions. In the present case study, the upcoming European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation is a central example of such a factor

Using Volunteer Tracking Information for Activity-Based Travel Demand Modeling and Finding Dynamic Interaction-Based Joint-Activity Opportunities

Technology used for real-time locating is being used to identify and track the movements of individuals in real time. With the increased use of mobile technology by individuals, we are now able to explore more potential interactions between people and their living environment using real-time tracking and communication technologies. One of the potentials that has hardly been taken advantage of is to use cell phone tracking information for activity-based transportation study. Using GPS-embedded smart phones, it is convenient to continuously record our trajectories in a day with little information loss. As smart phones get cheaper and hence attract more users, the potential information source for self-tracking data is pervasive. This study provides a cell phone plus web method that collects volunteer cell phone tracking data and uses an algorithm to identify the allocation of activities and traveling in space and time. It also provides a step that incorporates user-participated prompted recall attribute identification (travel modes and activity types) which supplements the data preparation for activity-based travel demand modeling. Besides volunteered geospatial information collection, cell phone users’ real-time locations are often collected by service providers such as Apple, AT&T and many other third-party companies. This location data has been used in turn to boost new location-based services. However, few applications have been seen to address dynamic human interactions and spatio-temporal constraints of activities. This study sets up a framework for a new kind of location-based service that finds joint-activity opportunities for multiple individuals, and demonstrates its feasibility using a spatio-temporal GIS approach

Prototype of GIS Based Location Information Enquiry System

The convergence of the internet and wireless communication has led the popularity of using handheld devices. People have now started demanding services that can be delivered any time anywhere, called Location Based Services (LBS). This paper deal with development of location based services on handheld devices that apply to emergency services. Handheld devices suffer from serious constrains in three areas: memory size, processor speed and screen size. This application uses the client server concept within wireless internet environment. The positioning service such as GPS is used to know the position of the user. The objective of this research is to display special query on the required spatial information within handheld devices using different operating systems such as WinCE, Palm OS and Symbian. This implies the strong feature of the proposed system. Hence the system assists people e.g. at the time of emergency to find the shortest path to the nearest hospital. The application will be access through the wireless internet. Only the related location in the entire map will be displayed on the handheld devices to which gives the economical usage of bandwidth and resources for real time response. This technology uses mobile internet as web browser embedded in the handheld devices. In Malaysia, a Location Based Services is still new and can be expand in many ways, especially in emergency cases

Open and Flexible Embedded System Applied to Positioning and Telecontrol

This paper presents the development and testing of an open and flexible embedded system applied to positioning and telecontrol (OFESAPO) for outdoor applications. The system is composed of a control center (CC) and a set of remote terminal units (RTUs); the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 60870-5 series has been chosen for communication among them. This is a standard protocol of real-time telecontrol applications. The CC is a personal computer, and the RTUs are based on open hardware and software. The RTU hardware is an embedded system, i.e., a system-on-chip-type design using fieldprogrammable gate array that has been programmed with the open-core LEON running Linux operating system. For prototyping, the GR-XC3S-1500 board has been used. As there is no open source code available for the IEC standard protocols, an open source code has also been implemented. Hence, both the hardware and the software are open source in OFESAPO. Several tests have been made to show the system’s limitations and the suitability for real-time applications. A prototype has also been tested in a real environment, where the real position of two moving RTUs was shown by a CC using Google Map.Junta de Andalucía p08-TIC-363