A term paper on “Location based digital badge integrated on a portable device”

Submitted by: Shashidhar Shenoy N

Roll Number: 10BM60083

MBA, 1st Year, Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur

As part of the subject “Management Information Systems”

Instructor: Dr. Prithwis Mukerjee

1. Abstract

A location based digital badge is a combination of hardware and existing software on a portable

device which will combine the advantages of Global Positioning System, social networking

information, personal information and the local settings in a manner that can be deployed in many

practical situations. From tracking inventory efficiently, getting location based updates such as

weather, restaurants, social events, etc, this device can even support sensing, i.e., sense your regular

course of action and suggest changes in case of contingencies. This can also be used as

broadcasting identity and schedule over the mobile device which makes it easy for friends to track

and follow.

2. Introduction

Location based Services are the order of the day. Be it marketing products to the target customers, or

tracking inventory accurately, location sensing forms a very integral part of the business. Much of the

GPS systems which are an essential part of providing this service are already in place and almost all

areas of the earth have been covered by this. Also, the ubiquitous presence of mobile phones with

fully integrated GPS devices has already taken care of the hardware requirements that these kind of

services demand. However, there is a lot of scope for innovations in incorporating sensors and

artificial intelligence in these systems so that a revolutionary technology can emerge out of it. If this

is done to its potential, the next wave of mobile devices will not only have features like telephony,

calendar, music, video, maps, etc but will be intelligent enough to converge all these in a manner that

addresses our requirements of social networking and location sensitive information.

The idea of a Location based badge is an attempt to explore this possibility in the near future and how

this innovation can be used by companies to base their business models and reap rich dividends for

themselves. Existing location based services can be enhanced to include social networking

information and personal preferences of the individual, user-generated content can be incorporated

into this and the end result can be an “always-on” location sensor which can publicly broadcast all

information about an individual to the web for other people to see. With innovations such as these,

even the privacy and legal aspects should also be considered and even these are highlighted in a

separate section.

The approach is three-fold:

a. Where the existing technologies stand at the moment

b. What does the proposed innovation mean and its business implications

c. Research on this area and prediction of where they will head towards in the coming years

3. Current Location Based Systems

There is already a lot of research and development that is happening in location based services. Most

of these have been rolled out already. Figure 1 shows the current situation in Location based

services. The emphasis is more on the hardware side. The usage patterns are explained briefly

below:

Figure 1: Existing system for LBS

Advancement in positioning methods are now able to track a device to its last latitude and longitude.

The Global Positioning Satellites [1] are very efficient in outdoor locations but fail to detect the

position in harsh weather and deep interiors. In such situations, GSM assisted positioning methods

will be used to speed up the location detecting giving a rough idea of the cell in which the device lies.

This information can then be used to track the position accordingly which is known as “assisted GPS”

[2]. As shown in Figure1, this information is enough for applications like maps, compass, driving

directions, etc which will help in navigation. A few advertising companies are also making use of this

services to send location sensitive alerts such as restaurant information, shopping deals at local

malls, etc to the consumers directly on their mobiles. Here is a summary of the current applications of

location based services:

• Point to Point Navigation: The pre-loaded maps on the mobile device will be used to mark

the current location. If a destination is specified, then the navigation software will

automatically calculate the nearest route, the alternate routes and the estimated time required

to reach the destination. It offers free turn by turn voice navigation too. The main players in

this arena are Google with its Google Maps Navigation, Nokia with Ovi Maps, etc. The

revenue model for these companies is usually from the navigation licenses that the users

purchase in order to use this software.

Figure 2: A Voice enabled Navigation software using Google Maps [3]

• Inventory Tracking: A GPS based receiver is embedded in all the transport vehicles. This

will give the exact location of the transport vehicle at any given point of time and helps in

tracking inventory. Though this seems to be a very easy solution, it can be easily manipulated

by the drivers of the transport vehicles. Also, the location sensing itself can fail under harsh

weather conditions, which leads to less efficient tracking and sometimes a complete failure to

track.

• Checkins by Foursquare: FourSquare is a mobile application that is available for high-end

smart phones with internet access [4]. It lets users to “check in” to a place where they are

located and explore friends who are in that area. The other friends can then join or send their

status updates about their location. It also lets people know more about the places their

friends visit and lets them plan their trips or activities accordingly. However, this is still a very

high-end concept and there is a limit to the checkins that are allowed per day. Also, it requires

user to enter their locations manually which may make them lose interest after a while[5]

• Google Latitude: This is another service which is based on location. Unlike Checkins where

users enter their data manually, Latitude uses GPS and GSM based positioning to update the

location of the current device and broadcasts the information to people whom the user likes to

share the information with. However, this application has had huge privacy concerns about

the users’ location getting automatically updated and broadcast without the user’s consent [6]

further enhancements in this technology can make it close to what a digital badge is expected

to become.

• Airtel Friend Finder: This is a location based service which was started by Indian

telecommunication giant Bharti Airtel. It is different from the other services in the sense that it

uses GSM related information only to track people. Also, this service is not limited to people

having smart phones alone. It can be used by anyone and everyone who has a mobile phone.

Hence the reach of the service is much broader and it is expected to fetch more revenue

based on volumes alone. However, since the service happens on a USSD based interface, it

will be cumbersome to use and people would prefer an easy to use interface for such

services.[7]

• Simple apps like ‘I parked here” – These are apps that are small, simple and sell for $1 or $2

on Smartphone application stores like Nokia’s OVI Store or Apple’s iStore. They are designed

to make use of the simple location information available from the GPS and store it and

retrieve it when the user demands it. Often, the time between the storage and retrieval is very

short and might not even last for more than one battery charge-discharge cycle. An example

app is the “I parked here” app. It makes a note of the exact location when you park the vehicle

in a shopping mall such that you can walk back to your car after shopping.

• Weather information – The most ubiquitous of all location based services is the simple

weather updates which is nowadays available in any portable device. It gets the location

information on the device and gets the local weather update on the phone from the local

server. This can be used by any application or even displayed as a widget on the home

screen of the portable device.

Figure 3: Weather information display on Windows7 laptop

• Local restaurants and events information: Even this service is almost ubiquitous today. It gets

the location information from either the GPS or GSM based positioning gets the local news

from a local server. This is then updated to the user in the form of a message or a USSD

push message. But all these are too trivial and not truly location based when we talk of

advanced location based services. At maximum, they can be SIM location based services and

there is lot of scope for improvements in them.

4. Improvements As a first step towards implementing the digital badge, an improvement is proposed to the current

location sensing technologies. GPS which uses the 24 satellites that orbit around the earth has its

own limitations in spite of using the A-GPS technology that was mentioned in section 3. It requires line

of sight communication between the device and the satellites, cannot work in harsh weather

conditions and fails completely inside buildings. It also has a large error margin which can be

unacceptable in many cases. The following diagram illustrates the improvements that are proposed to

the current location tracking system.

Figure 4: Enhanced location sensing on a mobile device

The enhanced GPS satellite uses a technology called augmentation [8] of GNSS (Global Navigation

Satellite System). This will improve the attributes of the GPS system such as accuracy, availability,

reliability, etc. Some of the widely used methods of GNSS are SBAS (Satellite based augmentation

system) where regional augmentation is done through the use of additional satellite broadcast

messages. There is also a differential GPS [9] where fixed reference stations will broadcast the

difference between the positions indicated by the satellite systems and the known fixed positions.

These differences can then be offset by the satellites and a more accurate position can be got.

A further addition to the concept of assisted GPS can be done through the use of social networking

information and contact information in the mobile. This will give a general trend of the user’s location

and that can be directly used as the starting point of the location before the more costly positioning

methods are used.

The diagram shown (figure 4) also shows the other technologies that can be incorporated for accurate

location detection when the mobile device is indoors [10]. There could infrared, Ultrasonic or RFID

based location sensing that can be done. Of these, RFID based sensing seems the most viable

alternative. It works on the principle RFID tags transmitting messages to RFID readers which detect

the location of the tags. These tags can be embedded on a mobile phone and the readers can be

placed along with the main WIFI router in the buildings. However, the research in this area is ongoing

and it needs to be seen how to incorporate such things on existing mobile phones. If the tag-like

functionality can be made available as a firmware upgrade on smart phones, then this idea can really

take off and reach a large segment of users.

Once improvements are done in the area of location sensing, we move to the idea of a digital badge

that is embedded on the mobile device itself. A basic block diagram of the location based badge is

shown in the Figure 5.

Figure 5: Digital Badge block diagram

The digital badge which is proposed will have access to all basic information in the device like

contacts, calendar entries, call logs, maps, etc. It is embedded on the mobile phone itself as a

firmware or even software program that can be installed as an application. The location detection is

optimised in the methods described above. The most important component of this will be the sensor

that is a part of the badge. This will have some intelligence in it to detect the usage patterns and

integrate this information with the available data. This feedback kind of system will regularly check for

information on many aspects and will be intelligent enough to update the same. This when integrated

with the location information will be powerful personalization tool which will be apt for Web3.0

As an example, let us consider the case of Raj living in Mumbai who is an avid blogger, follows

information related to hi –end gadgets, listens to rock music and usually shops at the tech mall for

gadgets. His travel is usually restricted to the cities of Pune and Mumbai. His network of friends is

mostly the likeminded blogging community who blog on high end gadgets available in the market. The

digital badge in his brand new Smartphone will have all this information available and the intelligence

will be updated to suit the current situation. Since most of his friends are from the blogging

community, they could be in different parts of the world. Raj would set his privacy options in such a

manner that his identity and interests will be broadcast to a few select friends of his

In a situation where one of his blogging friends, say Tsou who stays in Philippines is travelling to India

on a quick business trip, it might not be possible for Tsou to publish this information on the social

networking site because of various reasons. But nevertheless, he would also have updated his digital

badge and set the privacy options to broadcast his status to select friends like Raj. It so happens that

both of them have their scheduled appointments on a working day in the same locality of Mumbai.

The badge now works in the following manner: First, it checks the calendar of both the friends and

finds a time where both of them are free. If this time happens to be the lunch time, it tries to match the

eating habits of both the people. Let us say for the moment, that both of them prefer Chinese food

and there are many Chinese restaurants in the locality. The badge finds the best among this using the

spending habits information of these two people, ensures that the distance to the restaurant is

manageable and easily locatable to the two people and sends both of them an alert. Thus, Raj and

Tsou, who would never have had the opportunity to meet each other end up having a nice meal at the

restaurant talking about the subjects that interests them the most – high technology gadgets, without

realising that one of such gadgets had planned everything for them in the background.

Now, let us consider a situation where Raj has been really busy and does not have time to follow

news and happenings. Whenever he gets a little spare time, he plans to watch any movie that’s

playing at the local multiplex. However, there is this concert where the pop icon Bryan Adams [11] is

visiting Mumbai during the weekend. Unknown to Raj, the badge works in the background, checks the

information from the internet and rss feeds of Raj and knows that the rock star is in town. It checks the

ticket prices and availability and if there is a perfect match, alerts Raj. So, the badge has now taken

the location sensitive information and given Raj a surprise by giving him a chance to watch his

favourite singer perform live in action.

As seen from the examples above, the possibilities of the badge are endless. It is limited only by the

imagination and the amount of privacy settings the user sets in the badge.

Developing the Badge’s Intelligence:

Much research is happening in the area of developing Artificial Intelligence which can substitute the

need to collect all information, organize it and present in a manner that is desirable to the user.

Artificial Neural Networks [11], made up of interconnecting artificial neurons can be used to solve

artificial intelligence problems. The artificial neurons are programming constructs that mimic the

properties of biological neurons. The tasks which can be performed by these neural networks can be

broadly classified into function approximation, classification, and data processing. All these can

be used in conjunction in the digital badge. A detailed study on artificial intelligence and neural

networks is beyond the scope of this paper. However, it might suffice to say that these innovations

when combined on a mobile device are capable of providing necessary functionality that is desired by

the badge.

On a much simpler level, the intelligence enhancement of the badge happens through the concept of

hits and misses. The badge’s basic intelligence is tested in a laboratory to suit the most basic

personality types. There are many personality tests such as the MBTI [12] which classify people into

some broad types. For each type of personality, a basic kind of information is fed into the device and

it is then customised based on feedback. Suppose the device gives an alert in the correct manner,

some kind of marking should be given such that the result given is a hit. Suppose an alert is given

which the user does not need, then the result can be considered as a miss. The overall focus of the

algorithm should be in the direction of increasing hits and reducing the number of misses.

Current Research in this area:

As already mentioned, there is considerable research that has gone into developing such intelligent

devices. A branch of physicists are working completely on improving the accuracy and reliability of

positioning systems like the GPS, GNSS, differential GPS, etc. There are also many positioning

methods which are being worked upon for indoor positioning of an object like infrared, ultrasonic and

RFID tag based positioning. More accurate positioning could make use of the 3G or the broadband

wireless technologies to detect the position of the mobile device. Also there is work going on the area

of positioning using the IP addresses of the machines since almost all devices are expected to have a

IP address in the coming days.

There is a new branch of computing which is a radical shift from the era of desktop paradigm known

as ubiquitous computing [13]. In this system, human-computer interacting is integrated into

everyday objects and activities. There is a drive across the industry to replace the conventional user

interface systems like menus, command lines and GUI with a more revolutionary approach. Some of

the “smart” devices that are thought of include small chips which can be worn on hand, mobile pads

and boards. All these focus on miniaturization of the existing devices with more intelligence and

computing power in them. There is also a focus on linking the Ubiquitous computing concepts with the

concepts of context-awareness [14], in which location sensing plays a major role. Context

Awareness lays emphasis on computers which are not only sense the environment but also react to

the changes in it. Thus, there is a focus on making the existing systems aware of the location and add

intelligence in them. A digital badge, which is expected to just that is not far away as far away as

research is concerned. It is now up to the businesses to form revenue models from this kind of a

device and develop it into a commercially viable application. The figure (figure6) given below shows

the concept of context awareness (image source: http://www.dvs.tu-darmstadt.de/ - the website of

Darmstadt University, Germany) [15]

Figure 6 : Context awareness concept

Image courtesy: http://www.dvs.tu-darmstadt.de/research/percom/research_sub4.html

Privacy Considerations:

In cases such as these, the privacy of the user is paramount when considering the business viability

of the model. Usually, the lower the privacy setting by the user, the higher is the possibilities of the

application. Hence, there is always a trade-off between privacy and revenue. Companies would

always try to increase the revenues by forming very complex privacy policies. But the onus is upon

the user to read through the fine-print and consider the technical issues. Broadcasting location

information is a good thing as long as the user wants people to know about his location. But in a case

where privacy settings are set to very high level, the badge is not a useful tool even if it has enough

intelligence to sense location change and friend finding abilities.

Companies do get into lots of issues because of privacy infringements. For example, Google’s

Latitude service got into trouble because it updated the location of the user without the user’s

consent. Even Facebook has had some privacy issues where users complained that personal

information was being used by the company in an unauthorised manner. Hence the business model

which the companies develop must take into account these intricacies before launching these devices

commercially.

5. Applications

As already explained in the previous sections, an intelligent location aware badge will find many

applications for end-users, in healthcare and military areas, inventory tracking, etc. A few of the

applications are described in brief here:

Inventory Tracking

The Digital badge can accurately track inventory. Some of the features like RFID tags can be

programmed to operate even when the mobile device is switched off. Thus, it can prevent

manipulation by the truck drivers and can work in harsh weather conditions, making it an efficient tool

to track inventory.

Intelligent Companion

As described in the example of Raj and Tsou in section 4, the digital badge can act as an intelligent

companion by broadcasting your identity, likes and dislikes to few select people. It can connect

people with similar interests together. There are already many web portals which connect people with

similar interests together. Adding location information and making them location aware can help

people find people with similar interests in areas which they had never even imagined before.

Contingency planning based on regular routine events is one more thing this intelligent device is

expected to find use in. As an example, let us consider the case of Shipra who loves shopping at the

City Centre Mall in Kolkata. Her place is 40 minutes away from the mall and she usually takes the

same route every time she goes to the mall. Suppose there has been a blockage on that particular

route due to heavy traffic on a particular day, the badge gets this information from the local traffic

control website and immediately sends out an alert to Shipra by suggesting an alternate route. Thus,

the Badge has taken care of the contingency and saved her a lot of time.

HealthCare

A badge such as this will be very useful in case of emergency healthcare services. It is like a situation

where every doctor in this world holding a big badge citing his specialization and walking around the

place. In emergency situations like train travel or remote expeditions, it will be very useful if a doctor

who has specialized in a particular field is available rather than a general physician who usually

accompanies such trips. A badge which broadcasts each and every person’s information instantly

would help the cause better. Also, location sensing can be used to track the victims very early in case

of natural disasters and help the medical services to reach on time.

These are only a few illustrations of the applications. The actual application of such badge can be in

numerous ways and will come to light when people start using it in the same manner that numerous

uses of Facebook have come to light only recently.

6. Business environment

Most technology companies have realised that the next decade belongs to the services offered on the

web rather than the software itself and are changing their strategy to become more competitive in this

area. Even hardware companies which were had their core competency in chipset manufacturing or

mobile handset manufacturing have realised that the next big wave comes from services. Nokia, the

mobile telecommunications giant and Intel, the world’s largest chipset manufacturer have together

launched MeeGo [16], an open source operating system to increase their foothold in the services

category. Apple’s launching of iStore, Nokia launching OVI, Google launching Android for mobile

phone, etc are examples of how companies are shifting from their core competencies and entering to

capture a share in the Web3.0 services pie.

Facebook is already a popular service in many parts of the world. It is now seriously considering

providing context aware services. The recent launch of Facebook places [17], which provides users

with the option of sharing their location to friends, is one such step in the direction of location

awareness. Service providers such as FourSquare with their checkins, Gowalla, etc are already in the

location based services market

However, the main players in the market are expected to be companies with a high innovation index

and a business strategy. Google, which is taking over smaller companies which provide location

based service, is already diversifying its business to enter into areas like automobile, etc. A recent

development on this front has been Google developing an automated car steering [18] which can

drive itself in the city. They can use their brand equity and bring innovations such as these in the area

of location sensing.

One big question that concerns all these market players would be how to base their revenue models

upon? In the era of services dominated businesses companies cannot afford to sell these software

one-time and forget all about future services that are needed. Also, most consumers are already

accustomed to free services in the form of Facebook, twitter, etc and may find it difficult to start paying

for services if companies started charging for the same.

An intelligent strategy could be basing revenue in terms of applications as has been done by the

iStore or the OVI store. Along with earning revenues on on-time sale of the digital badge, companies

can also earn money from the intelligent applications which will be reasonably priced and available for

easy downloads. Thus, the companies can earn more revenues by economies of scale and increase

the online traffic. This would also mean more opportunities for network service providers and even

they can enter into partnerships with the companies providing location-based services.

7. Concluding Thoughts

We started off by examining the existing technologies for location sensing and the current applications

and their business models. Though there is lot of scope for growth in this area, the response from the

general public in using these services has not been on expected lines. Hence, there is a need to

improve the location sensing technologies and add some intelligence to these devices so that a viable

business model could be developed. We explored the possibility of such device in the near future.

Based on the current research in this area and the general shift towards converging all the

technologies like social networking, location based services and ubiquitous computing, we see that

there is a tremendous opportunity for devices like Location Based Badge emerging and becoming a

huge success in terms of technology as well as business idea. The opportunities are unlimited in

terms of its application and utility. However, companies must learn how to play the privacy card well to

reap huge dividends from this innovation.

8. Glossary of terms USSD – Unstructured Supplementary Service Data – a service on GSM mobile phones similar to

SMS. The connection is established between the client and the server and the data exchange

happens in form of messages.

RFID – Radio Frequency Identification

Web3.0 –The third generation of World Wide Web where the focus will be on personalization of

content unlike the user-generated content of Web2.0 or the read-only form of older generation

internet.

9. References [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS

[3] Image courtesy: http://www.wirefresh.com/google-maps-navigation-for-android-offers-full-

satnav-tom-tom-in-tears/

[4] http://foursquare.com/about

[5] http://mashable.com/2010/07/01/location-social-media/

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Latitude

[7] http://www.medianama.com/2009/12/223-airtel-pilots-location-based-buddy-finder-service-

review-suggestions/

[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNSS_Augmentation

[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS

[10] LANDMARC: Indoor Location Sensing Using Active RFID - LIONEL M. NI and YUNHAO

LIU, YIU CHO LAU and ABHISHEK P. PATIL Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong

University of Science and Technology, Clearwater Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China, Department

of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA

[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_network

[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBTI

[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_computing

[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_awareness

[15] http://www.dvs.tu-darmstadt.de/research/percom/research_sub4.html

[16] http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/02/15/nokia-and-intel-create-meego-for-new-era-of-

mobile-computing/

[17] http://www.pcworld.com/article/203667/facebook_places_what_you_need_to_know.html

[18] http://techblogy.net/google-develops-automatic-car-steering.html