Re: resend: definition of a 'thing'

Hi Mike, there was quite a bit of discussion early on about including
non-geo sensors...but the terms of reference for the working group were
specifically scoped down to exclude other sensor based detection like
NFT and audio detection, etc.  

Otherwise we're back to talking about Patterns and not Points again,
which would suit me fine btw 8)

But I think Alex's ending question is right and that's why I suggested
that in the levels of abstraction we also clearly define what is in and
out of scope.

Gary, I think your email provides a great summary of the key terms.
Based on this it seems pretty clear that in the context of #poiwg,
Location is the key attribute used for POI discovery, search and
presentation (e.g. placement).  And that POIs are really just a way of
relating arbitrary Information to Locations so they can be found and
re-presented.

Then the problem is simply a matter of defining the approach for
creating these relationships (e.g. a semantic discussion - perhaps based
on triplet style encoding).

And the other simple problem is what metadata is consistently available
for re-presenting these POIs.  And here the existing dc: type metadata
models seem like a great starting point.

This way there is a clear abstraction between the real world and the
digital world.  

        The real world contains things that can be dropped on your foot
        and that occupy real physical and temporal spaces.  
        
        The digital world contains a set of POIs that link arbitrary
        information (content and meaning) to Locations (or probably more
        specifically centroids) along with a consistently re-presentable
        set of metadata (including optional 2D, 3D and audio
        representations).

For me the richest source of information that I want to be able to
relate to Locations through POIs are web pages.  I'd love to be able to
add one or more rel type links (for example) to a page to make it
available as a POI or collection of POIs.  This would allow systems
(e.g. AR browsers or search engines, etc.) to index pages by Location
and then use the extracted metadata for re-presentation.  This would be
a truly w3c style POI standard that really embraces the web instead of
just using it for it's HTTP transport layer.

NOTE: Thomas' point about other transports is really valid and important
too though.


PS: Gary, one key thing that is missing from your email is something to
do with control over the re-presentation of the POIs too.  
e.g. orientation, scale, etc.


roBman 




On Wed, 2010-11-10 at 10:22 -0500, Alex Hill wrote:
> It seems to me that we could divorce the definition of a "location"
> from the sort of technology that supports it.
> In the future, everything will be tracked by some means (I am already
> being tracked at a coarse level; credit card receipts, GPS, etc.).
> Whether it is the device recognizing the item, partially recognizing
> the item and using a database to improve accuracy, or a direct signal
> indicating its location, it is still a "thing" that needs some sort of
> URI.
> And since it is a part of the physical world, it can be the "location"
> for a POI.
> This is why I would lean towards incorporating "thing" into "location"
> if possible.
> Here is an example use-case:
> My device sees a rock. I decide it is a POI and attach some data to
> it. The "world" or "cyberspace" may know nothing about it, yet.
> Yes, it may conveniently be big and difficult to move. Therefore it's
> "location" description is quite simple.
> However, if it is small enough to be moved, its "location" description
> gets more complex.
> If a sensor has been affixed, then tracking its location becomes
> straightforward.
> However, if only the information the URI includes is what my device
> saw then the "location" of this item is intermittent, perhaps
> "unknown", for periods of time.
> There will certainly be services that use a combination of credit card
> receipts, last GPS location and face recognition to give a device my
> "location".
> Seems we need to decide early on if we want to capture this in the POI
> standard.
> 
> On Nov 10, 2010, at 9:51 AM, Mike Liebhold wrote:
> 
> > Here's draft definition of 'thing'
> > 
> > A ' thing is a physical object with no fixed location that may have
> > a POI digital information attached that cannot be automatically
> > detected by geopositioning sensors. The POI,therefore will only be
> > detectable by a default visual ( or acoustic?) search, invoked by a
> > client.
> > 
> > ***
> > Question: Does this require a default registry of visual or acoustic
> > search services that can decode the visual ( or acoustic?) pattern
> > to point the client to the appropriate URI that explains the POI
> > format?
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> Alex Hill Ph.D.
> Postdoctoral Fellow
> Augmented Environments Laboratory
> Georgia Institute of Technology
> http://www.augmentedenvironments.org/lab
> 
>

Received on Wednesday, 10 November 2010 22:04:31 UTC