Here’s a thought…

Imagine something like coverflow on the iPhone, but not for browsing album covers. Imagine pointing the device and as you move it through space, the artwork flows to show videos, pictures and other stuff just hanging out there in space (see any of my various earlier postings about graffiti) wherever the device is pointing. Find a spot, then move the phone back and forth to zoom along a particular meridian.

What could we do with such a technology? I actually tried privately to patent the use of such peephole interfaces many years ago and blogged about them in #4 of my 100 ideas series a while back. I had the idea of reading large web pages by moving the screen over the page, just like a peephole cut out in a piece of card. I suggested using optical technology (i.e. the camera) as a motion sensor. Of course, most phone-cameras exhibit too much lag, but this could be improved dramatically if we’re only interested in movement detection.

The actual positional technology used doesn’t matter that much. What matters is the responsiveness. If I can point a device into space and get immediate response, then I’m likely to use it. That’s my contention.

Of course, this type of application is totally alien to our habits today. We move around and use our eyes to look at the physical world around us. We usually move through space in order to get somewhere, without really caring about what’s in between. But, what if we could point a device in any direction, moving in and out, and it could tell us things about the world around us - geocoded information scraped off the web? Inevitably, we would grow used to it and it would become familiar and useful over time. I think this represents a new level of mobility that we are yet to see, although the pieces are now available to implement it.

Actually, this is an application where the operators could have an advantage by caching information local to base stations and allowing a local IP connection to form (with authentication and IP set-up at the edge). This would improve response times to fetch geo-coded data. Interestingly, I did try to patent running data applications on base stations, precisely to reduce delays for these sorts of applications and also to power LED ad-panels on masts. At the time (early 90s) it was rejected by my then employer (big base station manufacturer) as an idea without application. A defensive publication was made and is probably sitting in some library somewhere. I wonder?

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