Ubiquitous geographic information in the emergent Metaverse

We sketch a brief history of the development of virtual geographic environments which build on online gaming, three-dimensional representations of cities, and the notion that computer technologies are now so all pervasive that many different models of the same phenomenon, in this case, geospatial systems, can now be built. This enables new forms of analysis that let us explore future spatial scenarios which address key urban problems through virtual environments. These allow us to experiment with the near future and to this end, we identify three key issues. First, we look at how we can use new technologies to develop all-embracing digital environments which are loosely called the “Metaverse”; second, the development of many models which form various kinds of digital twins having different degrees of “closeness” to the real system; and third, the emergence of platform economies that are beginning to push Metaverse-like technologies into the economic world of networked markets. We conclude with suggestions that these technologies can be used to inform our plan-making capabilities, for example, through geodesign, and we suggest how we might address the key challenges that need to be addressed to make their approaches ever more relevant to urban planning

Recent Developments and Future Trends in Volunteered Geographic Information Research: The Case of OpenStreetMap

User-generated content (UGC) platforms on the Internet have experienced a steep increase in data contributions in recent years. The ubiquitous usage of location-enabled devices, such as smartphones, allows contributors to share their geographic information on a number of selected online portals. The collected information is oftentimes referred to as volunteered geographic information (VGI). One of the most utilized, analyzed and cited VGI-platforms, with an increasing popularity over the past few years, is OpenStreetMap (OSM), whose main goal it is to create a freely available geographic database of the world. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the latest developments in VGI research, focusing on its collaboratively collected geodata and corresponding contributor patterns. Additionally, trends in the realm of OSM research are discussed, highlighting which aspects need to be investigated more closely in the near future

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

HowTo - Easy use of global unique identifier

Czerniak A, Schirnick C, Fleischer D, Mehrtens H, Springer P. HowTo - Easy use of global unique identifier. Presented at the AGU Fall Meeting 2013, San Francisco, US.First Step We use our scientifi c workfl ow system to defi ne the research workfl ow step by step. In every workstep metadata information is used to prebind to the proper identifi er system (eg. ports from geographic places and not people) which can then propose adequate suggestions upon user input leading to the correct assignment of the port in question. Sometimes a mapping between identifi er resources such as the german " Gemeinsame Normdatei " (GND) for people , institutions or geographic places and another like ISNI or OrcID for people only may be necessary for legacy reasons. For example our handwriting recognition system in conjunction with " digital enabled " paper uses names and maps to relate those to the respective systems in order to retrieve a global unique identifi er which is then used to reliably relate and store information (Figure 2). Identifi er system are ubiquitous but commonly they are not global(ly known) nor are they unique (national vs. international). Usage of global identifi ers in marine research greatly enhances search and retrieval of samples, data and related information and enbales scientists all over the world to reliably share and reuse research data. For many scientifi c disciplines numerous identifi er systems exists on a national and international level allowing non-ambiguous refernce to people, institutions and geosamples (Figure 1). Our goal is to reliably integrate these unique references in our virtual research environment, the Kiel Data Management Infrastructure (KDMI), supporting scientists in national and international projects and collaborative research centers

Coupling Human Mobility and Social Ties

Studies using massive, passively data collected from communication technologies have revealed many ubiquitous aspects of social networks, helping us understand and model social media, information diffusion, and organizational dynamics. More recently, these data have come tagged with geographic information, enabling studies of human mobility patterns and the science of cities. We combine these two pursuits and uncover reproducible mobility patterns amongst social contacts. First, we introduce measures of mobility similarity and predictability and measure them for populations of users in three large urban areas. We find individuals' visitations patterns are far more similar to and predictable by social contacts than strangers and that these measures are positively correlated with tie strength. Unsupervised clustering of hourly variations in mobility similarity identifies three categories of social ties and suggests geography is an important feature to contextualize social relationships. We find that the composition of a user's ego network in terms of the type of contacts they keep is correlated with mobility behavior. Finally, we extend a popular mobility model to include movement choices based on social contacts and compare it's ability to reproduce empirical measurements with two additional models of mobility

LBWiki: A Location-Based Wiki

Wiki systems provide a simple interface paradigm that allow non-technical users to author collaborative on-line hypertexts. In this paper we propose to use the same simple paradigm to allow users to create content for ubiquitous information systems, and present LBWiki, a prototype location-based Wiki that allows users with a mobile device to create Wiki pages based on GPS co-ordinates. We describe the hierarchical location scheme used within LBWiki and the results of a small evaluation, in which users reacted positively to the concept, but asked for greater control over geographical regions, and highlighted the importance of accurate location technology

Context Aware Adaptable Applications - A global approach

Actual applications (mostly component based) requirements cannot be expressed without a ubiquitous and mobile part for end-users as well as for M2M applications (Machine to Machine). Such an evolution implies context management in order to evaluate the consequences of the mobility and corresponding mechanisms to adapt or to be adapted to the new environment. Applications are then qualified as context aware applications. This first part of this paper presents an overview of context and its management by application adaptation. This part starts by a definition and proposes a model for the context. It also presents various techniques to adapt applications to the context: from self-adaptation to supervised approached. The second part is an overview of architectures for adaptable applications. It focuses on platforms based solutions and shows information flows between application, platform and context. Finally it makes a synthesis proposition with a platform for adaptable context-aware applications called Kalimucho. Then we present implementations tools for software components and a dataflow models in order to implement the Kalimucho platform