Mid-Air Messaging? 98
boogahsmalls writes: "HP has been working on a nifty little project by the name of Cooltown that allows users to "paint" the air with comments using GPS and mobile phones. A more extensive write up is available over at New Scientist."
Oh the posibilities.... (Score:1, Insightful)
think about it. If anyone can link messages to coordinates, don't you think advertisers will be the first to abuse this? hell, they go for everything else that can send messages. though, I wonder if you'll have to pay normal cell charges for these messages...
Where do we draw the line? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh the posibilities.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Would I be able to remove notes left on my land? (air?)
GPS is x,y,z right? so if I was 1 foot off the ground (give or take a few meters) this wouldn't be affected by somebody flying a plane, so wouldn't I be in coverage of the "you were on my lawn to set this."
but since theres a 3 meter spill rate, I guess I would have no such luck.
Oh well, cool idea, I'd use it, bad spam posibilitys.
Just What We Need... (Score:4, Insightful)
This all suggests that messages must be tagged with a radius as well as a location. On the highway at high speeds, one might need a 1-2 km radius to ensure that the message is delivered before one encounters the accident. On the other hand, one only needs a 1m radius to leave graffiti over the crapper at your local McDonalds.
Now what happens if the highway passes through a city (like Boston's 93) with lots of McDonalds... Will I walk into the men's room and get:
"Accident on 93 North - use left lane...."
"Here I sit all broken-hearted...."
If the restaurant falls within the message radius, I will. Now let's go for the low hanging fruit - the obvious fix-all. Let's tag the messages with a location, a radius, and a speed! It's GPS - calculating speed is easy, right? If I'm walking into McDonalds at 4km/h, I won't get the message intended for cars at 75km/h.
Now not only do people know where I am, but how fast I am going. Cross-reference with a map, and they know what road I'm on. Should I expect to see speeding tickets enclosed in my mobile phone bill? Will Mapquest email me:
"You know Dan, there's a much better route to work..."
Will my local health club text my mobile:
"We noticed you go to McDonalds quite frequently and you're not walking too fast these days..."
Privacy? What privacy?