At Ublip we’re always thinking about ways to bring our technology to a Web 2.0 world. One example of this is our Share Where product that has been adopted by several universities and non-profits. Share Where allows publishers to easily share the location of a mobile asset with consumers. One request we get time and time again is the ability to support mobile phones. We do provide limited support for mobile phones using Google’s static maps API, but in some cases it’s not as useful as a mobile client.

Let me introduce you to LightPole. Lightpole allows consumers to subscribe to “channels” and access realtime information about restaurants, shows, history and much more based on their current location. There are a lot of companies trying to solve this problem, which there is a definite demand for. So I fired up my LightPole account and within minutes we were tracking the Tufts Joey from one of our mobile phones here in the office. Since I can’t easily provide a screenshot of LightPole running on our phone I’ll provide a screen of the web app:

This was easily done by plugging in our GeoRSS feed and letting LightPole do the rest of the work. There are many different applications where providing realtime GeoRSS feeds to end users can provide tremendous value. Here are a few I can think of:

- Knowing where the city bus is
- Knowing where the pizza guy is
- Knowing where the air conditioning guy is (do I really need to wait around the house from 12-6?)
- Knowing where the shuttle is because I’m about to miss my plane

What if everything had a GeoRSS feed and I could use LightPole to “see” it on my mobile phone? I’ve stated on several occasions (to the point of being a broken record) that getting data from remote devices is not an easy task and that’s why we created our .

The Ublip Foundation is not a non-profit organization, but the name just seemed to stick as we worked frantically to get the product released. A definition of Foundation goes something like:

The basis on which a thing stands, is founded, or is supported.

That about sums up what we’re working hard to do in the location and M2M space. The process of starting with an idea, identifying a device, configuring/programming the device, writing a gateway to talk to the device over UDP/SMS/TCP/SMTP, creating the database schema, and building the Web application is a complex process. There are so many moving parts and areas of expertise needed to create an end-to-end solution.

What we’ve tried to do is create an architecture built on our infrastructure, that makes it easy to jumpstart your application development. We call it the Foundation. Check it out and feel free to contact us if you’re interested in learning more. We should have the ordering process released VERY soon.

I’ve been meaning to get around to this post for quite some time. Once or twice a year I go on a family quail hunt in South Texas. Last year I posted a quail hunt video on YouTube that has been getting a reasonable amount of views/comments:

The main reason for posting the video was to share with family and friends the different elements of quail hunting. I’ve come to learn that every hunting guide does things differently depending on how much land is being hunted, area of the country, who their guiding, etc. Every year we’ve been fortunate enough to hunt with Mitch Hurt’s Wild Bird Hunting service. Mitch is an incredible guy and knows everything about every bird that ever existed. At any rate, Mitch uses a wireless technology that helps him determine where his dogs are at all times (he normally puts two down at a time). The bird dogs have collars that transmit a signal back to Mitch’s receiver and it tells the general direction of where the dog is (by beeping) and whether or not the dog is on point (by beeping faster). It’s a rather crude technology at best and by no means extremely accurate. With that being said, the technology (shown in the video above) has stirred up some interesting comments on YouTube. I’ve included a few below for your reading pleasure:

If that doesn’t sum up people’s reactions to technology in an old fashioned industry then I don’t know what does. The comments are rather amusing, nonetheless. The tracking technology is used to provide a more pleasurable hunting experience and not make hunting easier. Sure, it may help us flush more coveys but that doesn’t necessarily equate to killing more birds. If you’ve ever had a covey flush under your feet then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about (it ain’t easy).

It appears that Garmin sees an opportunity in the bird dog tracking space. This past year Mitch mentioned to me that he’s interested in evaluating the Garmin Astro system. I just pulled it up this morning and was very impressed with the capabilities.

It’s not a cheap system and like all technology the price will come down over time. What’s interesting about this product is that the use of features specific to the quail hunting industry. For example, it’s very common in GPS navigation units to mark a “waypoint” or “point of interest”. Gamin sells this feature as a way to mark a covey and locate your lodge.

I believe there is a common theme that I’m seeing over and over again in this space. Many people are resistant to GPS tracking technology because it either invades someone’s privacy, causes security concerns, or just makes us more efficient. In the case of tracking bird dogs I do believe the technology is beneficial and it still doesn’t make me a better shot. I could go on and on defending my stance (can you tell I’m a bit defensive with the slight beating I’ve taken on YouTube?), but the reality is that GPS tracking may be coming to an industry near you.

I just wanted to share an initiative that we’re working on here at Ublip. We believe there’s a shortage of information and collaboration in the M2M space. There are a lot of hardware manufacturers and wireless carriers releasing independent discussion groups, but they’re mainly centered around promoting/supporting named company’s product. We’re proposing something different. There are so many different moving parts in creating an end-to-end working solution and we’re trying to capture these conversations at M2MForums.com. If you have expertise in hardware, software, wireless networks, or the business side of M2M, then we believe M2MForums is the place for you. Some good discussions are already taking place and please feel free to join our growing community.

I’ve been doing a considerable amount of hacking with the iPhone SDK, mainly to get the iPhone communicating with our Foundation product. Last night I was trying to display the horizontal accuracy from the iPhone’s CoreLocation API in our Foundation user interface. The horizontal accuracy is the radius of uncertainty of the iPhone’s location (and it’s measured in meters). The uncertainty I was dealing with at the time of development was 1618 meters. I’ve seen the iPhone come close to 100m and even better when connected via WiFi, but more on that later.

As part of our Foundation product we provide some simple JavaScript functions that make it easy to draw geofences on Google Maps. If you’re not familiar with a geofence, it’s basically a virtual boundary you can create to receive a notification if a device moves into or out of it. In most circumstances a circular geofence is used. So I spent an hour trying to understand why I couldn’t get the geofence overlay to display on Google Maps. Here’s my initial screen:

After a considerable amount of time and frustration passed (1 hr to be exact) I decided to zoom nearly all the way out and was surprised to see that I geofenced all of North America. Then I came to the realization that units were keeping me down (m vs mi). I was passing 1618 meters into our function, which was expecting miles. This yielded the following screen:

My geofence was only 1,617 miles off. It turns out that 1618 meters is just a tad bit more than a mile. Finally, I ended up with exactly what I needed:

Ah yes, much better. The image above shows the reading from inside our office building where we’re surrounded by all sorts of windows, walls, cubes, etc. Because of triangulation we’re able to get readings indoors and even underground. Even though the accuracy isn’t all that precise it’s enough to do some really interesting things. If you’d like to get your iPhone hooked up to the Ublip Foundation for development and testing purposes please feel free to comment or drop us a line.