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Idea: Location-aware operating system

Fred Oliveira on November 20, 2006

Here’s a thought I’ve been meaning to write about for a while. Why don’t we have location-aware operating systems yet? I want my laptop to know when I’m home, when I’m at the office or when I’m traveling - and I want it to give me relevant information and perform tasks based on my geographical location.

One can argue you can already mimic some of the functionality I’m talking about using existing tools (virtual desktops, multiple user accounts, etc.), but now that the physical technology to actually develop something like this is readily available - using GPS to figure out where you are and programming associated behaviors into the system -, why isn’t anyone working on it?

Imagine the experience

You are at work, doing your documents, reading your email and RSS feeds. Work time is over and you close the lid on your laptop to pack it home. You get home, open the laptop lid again. The laptop realizes it is in a different geographical location, recognizes it as “home” (through GPS, RFID on your home desk or even though your wireless connection) and switches the running application environment. It automatically starts itunes, downloads your music and streams the news (it gives you “home stuff”).

One machine, several environments. With a system such as this, we wouldn’t need the concept of a home PC or a work PC. Any machine would work on any environment, because it would adapt to it, and we’d always feel comfortable with it.

Getting hands dirty

Implementing such a system isn’t hard. It may not be at the grasp of a single developer down at one basement (because it is a complex system), but it sure is at reach for a team of people willing to make peoples’ lives with computers a little easier. And since none of the big players (Apple of Microsoft) are tackling this issue, why not get the ball rolling as an open source initiative?


Comments on this post

Artur Ventura

Oddly enough, its said that Apple is working on that same thing. I heard this along time ago (maybe a year or two, but they were still in PowerPC when I read that). Some guy, supposedly from Apple R&D, said that they were making experiments with GPS built in their PowerBooks. What they had in mind then was that you could ask things like “Where can I get a burger?” to spotlight and it would give you the fastest route to there. Now if that worked, imagine things like social network, or finding someone you might like?

So your idea is already being implemented.

Vincent

I strongly second Artur on the huge impact of both social and geolocalization possibilities in the near future. Imagine an instant messaging system based on geographical proximity (great to request help when you have a flat tire…).

engtech

I’ve done this before with my laptop by having different user accounts.

tim

What about if you work from home? :)

David

God help us. I want to tell the machine when I want to run iTunes. Not the reverse. I can just imagine the extensions… “iTunes cannot run because you are at the office”

Only an engineer could come up with this one…. :-)

(caveat: I’m an engineer)

p0var

понятно.

Mike

Have a read of the following - http://research.hp.com/techreports/2001/HPL-2001-158.pdf

It’s quite a short paper but talks about a lot of things that a location aware ((or strictly context aware) laptop would need to do.

Though old (in internet time) the basic principles haven’t changed. It shows that with a little effort you can achieve a lot.

JE

There used to be a “Location Manager” in Mac OS 7 (8?) that was a general-purpose framework for settings of all sorts — e.g. at Home, I’d like my volume to be 5, and at work 1. Network settings. Pluggable.

Trivial to drive it from some awareness of location — I’d drive it by WiFi network name, which is much easier than GPS ;-)

Maybe all of this is just plugging Location Manager back into OSX.

Frank

Check out http://www.appearnetworks.com/, they do what they call context aware application serving. The idea is that people will need access to ceertain applications and data based on where they are and what role they are performing.
Of course it’s currently a high integration enterprise application so don’t expect to install something on your laptop. But if you employed 1000 people with different job functions this would allow you to hand someone a laptop and it would serve up the applications appropriate to that persons’ function. Sure beats mainting dozens of different configurations.

Something to say?