Engagdet thinks that half-metre accurate GPS will enable people who misplace their keys and wallet to never lose them again and the CEO of a firm with the slightly improbable name of Digital Chocolate says:
"There are no killer applications that are driving this technology today," Jacobstein said. He explained that, aside from GPS navigational systems for cars and asset tracking, there are no "must-have" location-aware services.I'm with Mr. Jacobstein. I want to know what the killer app is. I can lose my mobile phone inside my car. I even lost it on the weekend inside my backpack (is that a clue that my backpack has too many pockets?). GPS accurate down to 30cm will not help me in that situation though I can see it helping parents with a lost child, for example.
Similarly, Matt Jones and Anne Galloway are both talking about Chris Heathcote's bluetooth+GPS+mobile phone experiment in broadcasting his personal location.
Chris says:
I must admit I'm not overly happy with giving everyone access to this data, but then again, this kind of service is the near-future that designers like myself have been preaching for years. It will cause privacy problems, it will cause social embarassment, it may change the way I live. Unless I try it myself, I will never know what unexpected consequences publishing this information will have. Self-ethnography is not scientifically valid, but I think it's one of the best ways of empathising with the problems new technology creates. If I won't use it, I shouldn't expect you to either.Which is admirable. As someone who'd like to be seen as a designer of future technology and as someone who attempts to study near-future technology that's a great attitude. However, I still wonder what it's for. I suppose at the moment, it's easy to ask that question and not give an answer.
I'll have a think about it and try to get another post up later.
