Soundbytes on locational technology

If there was a sign that 2005 would be the year of locational technologies, it was Google Maps (maps.google.com). The project combines Google's search technology with a speedy interface, geographical data from US company Navteq, Tele Atlas local business information, and a basic route-finding facility.

In 2004, Google bought out Keyhole, a digital mapping company that offers remarkable satellite images of geographical networks. As a result, Google Maps can now provide satellite photos of the US that are so accurate that individual cars can be seen on city streets. Also in progress is an application called Google Earth, which will provide photographic mapping for the whole globe, including large cities in 3D, right down to the heights of individual buildings.

Some ingenious developers have fused Google Maps with other online information to create new services. One such example takes the popular apartment rental listings from Craigslist (www.craigslist.org) and pinpoints them on US city maps.

Google Maps was initially available only in the US. But now, albeit in the initial stages, users in the UK can access an array of data quickly and at no cost. Enterprising UK developers have joined travel information from the BBC Backstage project (backstage.bbc.co.uk) to Google's service to create interactive maps of traffic problems, including one with views from central London traffic cameras.

On a smaller scale, independent organisations are taking advantage of better locational technology.

1831 Riot! (www.roaringgirl.com/ prod05_a.shtml), a radio play that takes place within real space, was shortlisted for this year's New Statesman New Media Awards. The play describes a riot in Bristol's Queen Square, and can be heard in that location on a mobile computer equipped with GPS (Global Positioning System). Listeners move around the square and, depending on their position, hear snippets of the play, which are sent from the GPS satellites. As each listener chooses his or her own path through the square, a different perspective is gained on the drama. The project uses an art form to explore the effects of time and space on an event, but the same technology could be used to provide tourist information services, or guides to historical sites or museums.

However, it doesn't have to be so complicated. One local collaborative group is using a basic mobile phone and a simple sticker to explore the idea of memory and the changing nature of the urban landscape. Blockies (www.blockies.com) calls its work "photo graffiti". Contributors text their photographs to the service, along with a unique number - one of many that they have previously printed out on stickers from the Blockies website. The photographer attaches the relevant sticker to a wall, lamppost or pavement. Anyone who passes the sticker and texts the number back to Blockies will receive the corresponding picture on their phone. That way, the image, even if it has passed, remains attached to the landscape.

Locational technology is a trend that's set to continue. When GPS technology becomes cheap enough and small enough to be built into laptop computers, we will be able to search for lost files not only by their name, and when we wrote them, but also by where we wrote them. Searching for "documents I wrote yesterday at the office", or "last week in Edinburgh" could be a reality within two years.

Ten years ago, virtual reality - where the business of the real world would be conducted entirely in digital format - was proclaimed to be the way forward. But today, the rapid growth of locational technology is proving the exact opposite. By adding new layers of meaning to what we see around us, new media is in fact enriching the real world in which we live.

Tom Armitage is the New Statesman's online production editor

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