location based services part 2

Last weekend I was in Berlin for the in-line marathon (1:37:44) and everybody (except for the elite since they only have a gross time and not a net time) was wearing these RFID based yellow pods as runners do. This made time tracking much easier but has a big disadvantage. You need to cross a physical line for measuring. The systems measures your starttime, halftime and finish time. I basically works great to tell you your ranking and time but it misses some great info like your speed at any point, where you accelerated etc.

When these devices were developed it made perfect sense since a GPS device was still bulky. Also the accuracy compared to GPS is much better. However when looking at the current state of technology it would be great to combine the RFID based solution as we have right now with a gps sensor and a sim card (any local prepaid simcard would do). Then you have the power of an accurate time keeping with the advantage of on line track/race info.

This would be a great help in analyzing your race start to finish since this dataset is a great overlay on eg google maps to compare road conditions with speed. Also info on altitude variances would be made visible

At the same time you give the people at home a nice way to interactively follow your race, get online stats etc and the race director and press a great tool for visualizing the race in a different way for those who watch the race

When looking at GPS module currently available ( eg. http://edageek.com/2008/09/16/ublox-amy-gps/) it should be possible to integrate this with some electronic circuits and a sim card in the same yellow RFID chip already used in races. Power can be taken from a small rechargeable battery combined maybe even with solar cells

The system would be the same as now with the RFID based devices. You either buy one and can use the same in any race or you rent one (with a deposit for the same amount of money to buy one). If you buy one the RFID part might only be useful in a race but the gps part would be be well usable in a training (you still can upload your data to a computer and analyse it) when using your private sim card. The databases can vary with the sim you use. So a private sim for training and a race sim (prepaid and local provided by the race organization) during the race

The same then can be done with tracking any large amount of people in an open space like an open air festival. The only challenge would be buildings (depending on the construction material and power of the GPS unit)

Location based services

Since office become more and more flexible and employees will not have their own desk anymore you as a company will run into some challenges like how do I find my peers in the building (are they in the building or not). Location based services in your building or on your campus can be a big help here. Obvious for privacy reasons the people will move around the floor plan without names (until you search for a specific person). This makes finding people easy and people moving around on a floor plan displayed in the reception area are a great way to entertain visitor waiting but there are some extra serious benefits as well.

Just think about:

Safety:
Despite some block out areas (like the toilet groups) it would be helpful if some people are not moving for a certain amount of time.
Security:
It is always very helpful if, in case of an emergency, you know exactly who is in the building and more important where they are in the building. Obviously this will be the case for regular employees and guests
Facility management:
It is a great management tool on the usage of the building. you know exactly how the building is used by various employee groups and can adjust the building layout according to this. Also this would help you planning office expansions
IT:
In case a helpdesk engineer has to come over to support you they can use this to find you but they can also use the data to provide the right IT facilities (perfect planning of amount of printers and their location)
Communication:
When using a digital signage solution to communicate with the employees you can use the data for better targeting the message within your building or campus

Depending on the building (how it is built, your already available IT facilities etc) there are several ways to do this. You can use your wireless access point to calculate where peoples computers are (when working wireless, wires can just use the location of the ethernet wall outlet). This is the most easy way but when somebody walls away for a break while leaving his/her computer on a desk the quality of the data will decrease.

Another option would be using RFID tags on the badges. This would enable you to create the desired grid (some areas might need a more dense and thus accurate grid than others). This solution gives you great insight in the way a facility is used while on the other hand facilitating the employees. The only point of attention is privacy so before implementing create awareness about the solution and impact and adjust the shown information to the needs so privacy van be respected