Mobile Portland: Ambient Location Apps and Geoloqi

Tonight Aaron Parecki and I will be speaking at Mobile Portland on ambient location apps and Geoloqi. We’ll be presenting an information-packed speech on our experiences with geolocation, GPS, location triggers and non-visual augmented reality. See you there!

We’ll will cover the current players in the geolocation market, the location market itself, and why location is such a big deal. Topics such as real-time location sharing, geolocation triggers, geonotes, proximal notification and automatic checkins, and privacy and security will be discussed.

Presentation Description

Wouldn’t it be nice if your colleague’s phone could SMS its location to you? If you know position and velocity, you know when they’ll arrive. The result: the interface disappears. No redundant actions or queries. The same software could turn your lights on as you approach the house. Or automatically “check in” to certain locations for you. Or leave a note for yourself the next time you’re at the store.

Augmented reality and location were hot topics last year, but there is often a confusion between aesthetics vs. practicality, and fantasy vs. reality. This presentation will highlight the advantages and disadvantages of visual and non-visual augmented reality.

In the presentation, we’ll will highlight why developers of apps should look at what users want to do now, as well as what users want to do in the future, why social apps should try to mirror real-world relationships, why sharing should be about who you share with as well as how long you’re sharing, and why developers should think about how to make apps “ambient” and require less user interaction.

What Will Be Covered

• The location market. Where it is now and future projections.
• Why the market is here (timing, hardware, affordability, etc.).
• Some history (PARC research, etc.)

The current players:

• What they’re doing
• Where they fall short
• What we’re passionate about and are trying to solve.
• Philosophy of interface evaporation.
• Other cool things you can do with ambient location and sensors (fun home automation tricks and pranks).

When:

Monday, January 24, 2011 – 6:00pm

Location:

Urban Airship / Cloud Four
334 NW 11TH Ave.
Portland, OR 97209
United States
See map: Google Maps

RSVP:

The event is free, but you should RSVP so that a seat can be arranged for you. RSVP for Ambient Location Apps and Geoloqi.

About Aaron Parecki

Aaron Parecki is a Portland-based iPhone and PHP developer interested in solving practical problems with technology. In his free time, he enjoys geolocation, linguistics, and building home automation systems and IRC bots with a sense of humor.

For the past 2.5 years, he has been tracking and visualizing his location every 6 seconds, making him a frequent presenter at the Portland data visualization group. His fascination with location sharing and GPS began at the age of 6, when he traced the routes of family road trips on a map with a highlighter. He combined these interests and created Geoloqi.com with Amber Case in an effort to help people connect in the real world.

Aaron has 11 years experience in web app development, database design, graphic design and printing, and server administration. You can learn more about Aaron at aaronparecki.com, and you can follow him on twitter at @aaronpk.

About Amber Case

Amber Case is a cyborg anthropologist and user experience designer from Portland, Oregon. Her main focus is mobile software, augmented reality and data visualization, as these reduce the amount of time and space it takes for people to connect with information. Case founded Geoloqi.com, a private location sharing application, out of a frustration with existing social protocols around text messaging and wayfinding.

Last year, Case was featured in Fast Company as one of their Most Influential Women in Technology and spoke at TED on technology and humans. She worked with Fortune 500 companies at Wieden+Kennedy and now works as a user experience designer at Vertigo Software in Portland, Oregon.

You can learn more about Case at caseorganic.com, cyborganthropology.com and on Twitter at @caseorganic.



2 Responses to “Mobile Portland: Ambient Location Apps and Geoloqi”

1. Sam says:

   January 25, 2011 at 1:53 pm

   Hi Amber

   This sounds really interesting. Unfortunately, being in the UK – shall miss out. Any plans of sharing the presentation on slideshare or something akin?

   Thanks

   Reply
2. Amber Case says:

   January 26, 2011 at 7:21 pm

   Thanks for your comment! The speech went really well, and the slides are here:

   http://www.slideshare.net/aaronpk/ambient-location-apps-and-geoloqi

   There may be a recording as well, but it will be a while before it is up.

   Reply