Over the past few years we have worked very hard developing next generation positioning technology. The term LBS 2.0 is not new but it has acquired much deeper meaning.
The LBS 2.0 definition (if there really is one) currently concentrates on the application end of things where it now must also look at how does the user’s device actually find its position. In other words, what is the underlying signals/frequency methodology in finding the user’s location?
The entire location market is moving decisively into this new realm of application side LBS 2.0. The positioning method side has evolved slowly. We hope to change the game here by revolutionizing the positioning method and giving it its own vector in LBS 2.0.
But first….why is this vector important? It is important because LBS 2.0 mean higher precision, higher reliability and greater cost efficiency. These are the heart of the LBS value matrix. These three categories generate user adoption and drive revenue for the LBS provider.
So why is LBS 2.0 different or at least why is our methodology different? One reason is our approach to precision timing which by extension is precision location. All real-time navigation sits on the foundation of timing. The more precise your timing across the network the more precise your location. GPS satellites are essentially very accurate, very stable clocks.
What’s different about ZT is that we collapse the typical categories of infrastructure vs. client or satellites vs. GPS device to get positioning. This approach is seen across a host of current positioning system architectures and GPS is one of them. The GPS satellites simply provide the positioning down to the passive clients who receive the data from multiple satellites, process them and display location. For LBS 1.0 this was great – Location Based Services just needed input from the prescribed location method. GPS is the most prevalent followed by a variety of cellular infrastructure based techniques. The problem gets to the heart of the value matrix: these techniques are not very accurate, they are not very reliable and they can get very expensive. LBS 2.0 can also entail different positioning methods wrapped into service but that is irrelevant if it can’t optimize this value matrix.
So what’s the 2.0 in LBS 2.0? It’s not just reliability and accuracy with cost efficiency. The 2.0 is the method by which we are accomplishing the positioning and in an odd way is similar to the methods of Web 2.0. Wikipedia does a nice job of defining Web 2.0 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0) and goes to great lengths to acknowledge that it has varying levels of definition the most important of which are the following traits (these items paraphrased from the wiki entry):
1) Web 2.0 is an architecture of participation where users can contribute website content [that] creates network effects.
2) Web 2.0 creates reciprocity between the user and the provider where users upload and download instead of passively downloading a web page (this is actually a quote by British Guardian writer Stephen Fry).
3) Web 2.0 is the transition … from isolated information silos to interlinked computing platforms that function like locally-available software.
How is this similar to LBS 2.0?
1) LBS 2.0 is an architecture of participation where the user’s device contributes key data into the network and creates network effects (see earlier post The Law of the Location Aware Mobile Wireless Network: Part 2: http://zulutimecorp.com/2007/09/thelawofthelocation_aware.htm) This is discrete from infrastructure vs. client implementations that define GPS and most cell tower techniques today.
2) LBS 2.0 leverages reciprocity between the user and provider. This is much like user contribution in #1 but this takes it further. In LBS 2.0 the reciprocity means the user’s device submits key data into the positioning network and the recipients (what is historically looked at as infrastructure) takes the data, processes it with its own data and passes it BACK to the user. This reciprocal relationship is an ongoing process.
3) Finally LBS 2.0 is the transition from information silos to platforms that have are essentially interlinked and can act as locally available software. LBS 1.0 is the historic infrastructure silo vs. clients silo. In LBS 2.0 the clients can be robust members of the core positioning capability as well lending its own data into the network as key members enabling it. Processing for the positioning can largely occur on each device while still minimizing code, power and processing footprints. Further the processing can be broken up in a distributed manner.
We view LBS 2.0 as THE next generation location method. It is not possible to reach the location demands and requirements over the next decade without these in place.
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