Real-Time Collaborative Mapmaking

savetz writes "Throughout October and November, citizens of Amsterdam were invited to wear a GPS tracker as they went about their lives. Their whereabouts were forwarded to a server which created a map of the city in real-time, based on "the sheer movements of real people." The site includes aggregate maps, and those created by individuals, including a subway driver, cyclist, and marathon trainer."

Could this finally do spam in?

[steveadept]

Okay, it may seem a funny jumping-off point, but stick with me for a second. Digital society hates spam, but not nearly enough for anything to actually be done about it. I think that's because it's basically limited to doing damage to your Inbox.

Yet when everybody's walking around with wristwatches connected to GPS and the 'net, and Joe's Pizza and Meg's Jewelry and Walmart and Target all want to spam your watch with their current specials as you walk within a hundred feet of their stores, people would (I hope) find that far too invasive and seek iron-clad control over the data they receive.

Unfortunately, I don't think this is the likely scenario. Probably most device manufacturers will provide a preference which permits you to turn off "unsolicited advertising" delivered via a certain protocol, but other delivery methods (http, pop3, etc.) will remain just as viable. Too bad.

Steve

"How big is your world"

[Tony.Tang]

The images are absolutely fantastic, and go to demonstrate just how small our lives are. Cumulatively, all their users contribute to a very revealing map of Amsterdam; however, individually, most stay in a very small subset of the area. It's easy to see how those east-side/west-side stereotypes can develop given that most people really only live on one side and never really go to "the other side."

The visualization technique that they use is really cool too -- it lets you see more vividly the areas that get traversed (cumulatively) more heavily.

Red Light

[kiley]

It is great to see that every one of those people spent some time in the Red Light District. :)

Who do you trust?

[LostCluster]

One use I can think of this would be a data source for traffic reports. If the sensor is moving quickly, it's safe to assume that whereever that sensor is, there's a highway operating perfectly fine. If a sensor comes to a stop or goes slower than normal speed on a highway (excluding tollbooths and rest stations, zones that I'm sure will be quickly identified) that indicates that something has gone wrong such as an accident or blockage. Whatever it is doesn't matter, so much as the fact cars aren't going at the proper speed. What would result from this data is a hot-cold map of the highways that indicates pixel by pixel where the road is at full speed, and where it's not. The only thing is, I'd much rather that sensor in my car be reporting to a private traffic-reporting company than the government....

Re:uh, hello?

[LostCluster]

Government tracking == bad, private group tracking data for limited purposes == good.

Tracking me to give me a speeding ticket every time my car's speed > 66 mph == bad... tracking me so that the world can know trafic's moving at 75 mph on route 3 good.

Re:"How big is your world"-Wallet?

[Anonymous Coward]

" Every inhabitant of Amsterdam has an invisble map of the city in his head. The way he moves about the city and the choices made in this process are determined by this mental map. Amsterdam RealTime attampts to visualize these mental maps through examining the mobile behaviour of the city's users."

This will of course be of benifit to sociologists.
I wonder if they have a breakdown of the results by gender, or age, or even economic. Do males wander farther afield? Are the younger generation more mobile? Is there a difference in mobility, as well as were, based on the amount of money you have? City planning could be more "humane", by looking at density of lines,combined with time measurements and correlating that with architecture. Which places are more conducive to social interaction? Which is "user" hostile, represented by places on the map that fewer people go to. How about looking at data for the span of a year? Enough time for the seasons, as well as other events to manifest themselves in the results.

Terrorist Maps

[Anonymous Coward]

Hrmm..
Now they know where to place the bombs to inflict maximum collateral damage.

GPS over GPRS

[ukryule]

One of the neat things I haven't seen comments on was the fact they were using GPRS to transmit the GPS data in real-time [waag.org] - so the GPS data really was uploaded as it was generated. This is the sort of thing that GPRS is really good for - it's low bandwidth (so doesn't cost an arm and a leg) and constantly updated.

Town Planning.

[Craevenwulfe]

It quite obviously points out the hot spots and cold spots. It identifies the towns ring road quite easily. All in all I would think it made for an excellent utility when it came to town planning (Your own town and for reviewing mistakes of other towns).