Openlocation.org Is About Quality Of Life
Openlocation.org was born of a desire to create better location-aware applications. For many reasons, it’s very difficult to find things that matter near you, and with more data being published, it’s actually getting harder. Proximity enables our day-to-day reality, and better awareness of our surroundings has a direct impact on our quality of life.
- Yellow-pages style searching is not enough
- Proprietary “Friend Finder” services are not enough
- Personal Location Sharing is not enough
- Proximity Alerts are not enough
- Having to use multiple applications to perform reliable proximity search is unsatisfactory
How many applications and user accounts must one have to get the quality of life benefits that should be possible with current technology?
How much irrelevant data do you need to wade through to find something that might be useful to you?
Why should all location-based information be presented in the form of a (typically incorrect) map?
Is it helpful to think of location strictly in terms of latitude and longitude, or do humans benefit more from the notion of proximity and qualitative location?
If two friends are trying to meet up, being in Chicago is qualitatively entirely different from being in New York. The numeric specifics of either party are irrelevant. What matters is proximity and the very human notion of “in town” or “away”. This is not a problem we need geo techniques to solve; so why resolve either party’s location to 5 decimal places if fewer will suffice?
Due to the limitations of GPS, geolocation via triangulation or Wifi is often sufficient or preferable. Why should we treat data and applications that use geolocation the same as applications that use GPS?
Why should we treat devices and applications that are geared towards dealing with relative proximity (iPhone, Loki) the same as devices that are geared towards navigation and mapmaking (GPS)?
Maps are misleading: a pushpin implies a level of accuracy which may not exist; how do we convey a notion of location inaccuracy, and allow this inaccuracy to exist as a natural part of the location ecosystem?
What other representations besides for 2D mercator can we use to convey the meaning behind location?
These are some of the difficult questions that have prompted the creation of the Openlocation.org initiative. If you’re interested in helping to solve these problems, please offer your voice to Openlocation.org.
