[gps-talkusers] Re: Fw: Inside out: Google launches indoor maps
- From: "Marco Migotti" <news@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:19:20 -0600
This sounds too creepy for my liking! Big brother is just around the corner.
Yeah it might help the visually impaired get around, but the potential for
evil in my opinion, outways any small good that it would offer. I don't want
people to always be tracking my movements everywhere I go. The creating of
user profile databases is just too close to being big brother. I like my
privacy and don't want the state police and government tracking my every
move through the apps on my smart phone. Gps on my braille sense onHand is
useful and I can choose to use it or not and it isn't connected to the
internet so I don't fear the continual tracking of governments. However,
having a smart phone with apps that use the web for their input, make this
kind of technology a plus minus thing. Although, I admit, I might end up
using such technology if it were ever to come to a shopping centre near me.
Marco
From: gps-talkusers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:gps-talkusers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob Acosta
Sent: March-13-13 7:44 PM
To: gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gps-talkusers] Fw: Inside out: Google launches indoor maps
----- Original Message -----
From: Alan Dicey <mailto:adicey@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2013 3:05 PM
Subject: Inside out: Google launches indoor maps
Inside out: Google launches indoor maps
Date
March 13, 2013
Asher Moses
Technology Editor
Google Maps indoors
Google has launched indoor maps, allowing users to find their way inside
airports, shopping centres and other large buildings with their mobile
devices.
Google Maps indoor venues
Google has launched indoor maps in Australia allowing users to find their
way around inside airports, shopping centres, train stations and other large
buildings using their mobile devices.
Australian engineers at firms such as Navisens, CSIRO and UNSW are leading
the world in developing advanced indoor navigation technology capable of
helping people locate specific products on supermarket shelves, tracking
athletes' performance or guiding the visually impaired.
Google
UNSW is beginning trials this week on technology to help visually impaired
people navigate indoors.
The indoor Google Maps technology, which uses nearby wi-fi networks and
mobile towers rather than GPS to determine your location, is available for
200 indoor locations across the country.
The indoor maps automatically appear when you zoom in on a building using
the app. At launch the most popular venues are shopping centres with many
Westfield, Stockland and Centro floor plans covered, among others.
The list also includes 10 train stations (such as Flinders Street and Town
Hall), airports (Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide), several IKEA stores,
sports venues (Hisense Arena, Rod Laver Arena, Etihad Stadium, ANZ Stadium)
and several cultural venues including the National Gallery of Australia, the
Art Gallery of NSW and the Sydney Opera House.
Google's indoor map of Flinders Street Station, Melbourne.
Google's indoor map of Flinders Street Station, Melbourne.
Australian Google Maps product manager Nabil Naghdy said the plan was to
rapidly increase the number of floor plans, and to speed this up business
owners could upload their own plans to Google.
"It's like having an indoor directory in the palm of your hand helping you
work out where you are, what floor you're on and how to get to where you
want to be," he said.
Currently only a "handful" of venues support the "blue dot" that
approximates your location on the indoor map. Google must do surveys of each
venue to determine users can be located to within a few metres.
Google's indoor map of the Queen Victoria Building, Sydney.
Google's indoor map of the Queen Victoria Building, Sydney.
The technology largely relies on nearby wi-fi networks as conventional
satellite technology doesn't work inside or in some built-up outdoor
environments. It will initially only be available on Android devices.
Around the world so far about 10,000 floor plans have been added to Google
Maps in countries including the US, Britain, Switzerland, Sweden, Singapore,
Spain, Japan, Germany, France, Denmark, Canada and Belgium.
Australian indoor navigation firm Navisens recently won the "best
technology" award at the Launch Festival 2013 in the US for discovering how
to do indoor and underground mapping without any infrastructure, including
wi-fi networks.
Google's indoor map of Melbourne Airport.
Google's indoor map of Melbourne Airport.
Navisens managing director Ashod Donikian said his technology instead used
the inertial sensors built into smartphones such as accelerometers and
gyroscopes to calculate the user's location by measuring their acceleration
and orientation from a starting point. This data is then crunched by complex
algorithms.
Donikian said there are a variety of applications such as offering targeted
location-based deals in shopping centres, finding where specific items are
located inside stores, finding seats at sporting events, meeting friends at
busy venues and locating people during emergencies.
"In the near future, you will never have to open a door or switch a light,
the environment will know where you are and where you're going and act
accordingly," said Donikian.
"The heating will optimise to where you spend most of your time. Lights will
already be on before you get to the dark room. Your fridge door will slide
open as walk to the fridge."
He hopes companies like Google will acquire or license the Navisens
technology and incorporate it into their apps to enable more efficient and
accurate indoor navigation.
CSIRO has also developed indoor navigation technology and is targeting
industries that require extremely high accuracy such as sports and mining.
CSIRO's research director for wireless and networking technologies, Dr Iain
Collings, said it was accurate to 10 to 20 centimetres.
Catapult Sports is already using the CSIRO technology to track and measure
performance data of athletes including six NBA teams and several indoor
Olympic athletes.
"Location based services are part of the next revolution of smartphone and
tablet applications," said Dr Collings.
Google software engineer Waleed Kadous, an Australian who leads Google's
indoor mapping effort from California, told a conference at UNSW in November
last year that indoor mapping was approaching the tipping point of
mainstream adoption but there were still "major flaws" such as problems
gathering the required data.
Kadous showed off an example of an application that is still in development
at Google, which allows people to see where their friends are in a shopping
centre and easily meet them without communicating
UNSW researchers are working on indoor maps applications for the visually
impaired, allowing them to more easily get around chaotic settings such as
airports without assistance. They have already developed the technology
including a user interface that supports Braille and will begin trials with
six visually impaired volunteers this week. The researchers have mapped
buildings at UNSW and the Vision Australia headquarters in Sydney to use as
test beds.
Another Australian organisation, Abuzz, which already provides interactive
wayfinding kiosks in 50 of Australia's largest shopping centres, has been
offering to develop indoor navigation apps for existing clients but said the
take up so far by shopping centres was slower than expected.
Will you use Google's Indoor Maps? Let us know in the comments.
source URL:
http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/smartphone-apps/inside-out-google-laun
ches-indoor-maps-20130312-2fxz2.html
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