Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
around which new knowledge can be acquired. Geography is a synthesis discipline, and synthe-
sis is best done by human interpretation, but at a higher level than simply detecting and recognis-
ing features and events in data. While visiting a site, for example, we could ask the system what
has happened here and what will happen here in the future? This is an extension of Goodchild's
(2004) request that a digital library be able to answer the request: give me everything that has
happened here. We may be able to ask, What is happening here, why and what will the out-
come be? This is an entirely higher level of spatial reasoning, spatial thinking and geographical
intelligence.
19.5.2 f
uture
M
oBility
If ever a suite of technologies was destined to collide with GISci and GC, it was the field now known
as location-based services (Raper et al., 2007). Highly mobile computing devices, often cellular
telephones, which include the ability to interact with global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs)
(usually the GPS), have built new markets and new applications, facilitated navigation and rout-
ing and opened up the geospatial world to a whole new popular audience. When coupled with the
on-line and wireless capabilities of the Internet and the World Wide Web, our current era is largely
determined by services and innovations in this emergent field. Issues today are largely technical,
how strong can wireless service support phone service, how can applications be made to fit onto
small devices with limited displays, what impact is the mobile pad computing device market having
and what impact are spatially enabled social networking applications such as Foursquare having
on how we interact with our geographic environment? Meek et al. (2014) provided their view on
location-based GC, with a vision of how mobile devices might be used in the future for undertaking
analysis and modelling in the field.
Speculation on mobile computing in 2061 can be made with more certainty than in other fields.
The vision of global wireless coverage, as demonstrated by today's satellite telephones common
in journalism, is already feasible. With four proposed GNSSs likely to be in operation well before
2061, the positioning redundancy is likely to drop receiver errors to the order of millimetres, with
positions acquirable in seconds with 60 Hz frequency. GPS chips have continued to become smaller,
to require less powerful antennas and to be embedded in everything from telephones to shoes and
ski jackets. Next-generation systems, such as microlites, offer the promise of positioning indoors,
underground and underwater, thus eliminating many of the current constraints on GNSS use. Pretty
much any appliance will be able to report its position, velocity and track. Once embedded into sen-
sor networks and combined with other technologies such as video recognition, bar code reading
and radio-frequency identification (RFID), it will be possible by 2061 to track anything, anywhere
(Figure 19.8). The on-line tracking services currently offered by FedEx and UPS are merely hints
of what is to come.
The company Advanced Digital Concepts reported on their website in 2007 that employee Ben
Thompson has implanted an RFID chip surgically into the palm of his hand that can unlock and
start his car automatically by touching a target on the window. With GNSS and wirelessly enabled
devices, such as implanted chips will probably be common in the future, for everything from vali-
dating security to managing employees in smart buildings and on campuses. As a university pro-
fessor, if I am still lecturing to classes in the near future, I would welcome the day when a glimpse
at my iPad as class starts, reveals a map of the students in my class, some sitting neatly in rows
with symbols indicating that they have submitted their homework, some as red line symbols des-
perately converging on the lecture theatre and others remaining as blinking orange dots motion-
less in one place at home or in the coffee shop. Nevertheless, this vision presents challenges. Who
will track 9 billion lifelines in 2061, and for what purpose? Will we still rely on visual analytics to
envision the patterns and flows of human motions (daily commutes, journeys, migrations, pilgrim-
ages), or will automated systems do this? If so, are we interested in normal behaviour or that which
varies from the norm? Can such technologies be used to enforce, identify and convict individuals
