All thats left now is to prepare for my presentation next friday, which I’m looking forward to in a way. Anyway, lets hope it goes well!

I’ve also been adding a few more features to the website today and sorting out the main front pages out getting it all polished off.

I also came up with a design for the phone application:

Will hopefully have a website design done tomorrow that I can get cut up to replace the current shell.

Gallery Viewer

What I’m hoping to do is get this working with the website so as xml documents can be read in automatically using php. Should be good.

The nice thing about having this part of it separate from the main flash program means that it frees up a lot more of the CPU, so I shouldn’t get as many problems as I’ve been having with the actionscript getting stuck. Fingers crossed.

Secondly, software issues! At the moment I’m having a problem solving the whole issue of taking photos and getting them online so as to allow my project access to them along with gps data. So far I’ve found a piece of software called TimedSpy which will allow me to automatically take a photo every set interval and save it to the phone memory. The only problem being I can only use a Symbian based phone, which means using my old Nokia 6600, not what I want!

Not happy with this I decided to hunt for a similar piece of software that is Windows Mobile based. The nearest bit of software that I could find was called Pocket Camera but was developed for a smartphone. Un surprisingly it didn’t work. That got me thinking and after a looking into developing my own application for the platform I found an entry in the Windows Mobile Version 5.0 SDK for the camera API. After downloading it and borrowing a copy of Visual Studio as well as finding a very helpful video by a guy called Rory Blyth I found that I couldn’t control the taking of photos within the program. Instead the user would always be presented with a dialog in order to take the photo. I tired looking for ways around it but could find nothing.

This leaves me using the TimedSpy application. To upload the photos to the server I found a nifty bit of software called ShoZu. This allowed me to create my own site within my profile online that my phone can access. For this I just setup the connection with my FTP details to my web server which will allow me to upload directly, which is very handy! Luckily this also works on Symbian based phones too but this leaves me with a 2 phone setup and only I contract with an unlimited data plan, whoops! Will have to beg Adam to see if I can borrow his Sim.

He particularly liked the way I will record photos along these journeys, tieing these into the location, caching them if you will. Mike also showed my a couple of videos of Microsofts’ Photosynth. I could explain what it is but thought the Photosynth website summed it up nicely:

Our software takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.

Mike suggested it would be nice to view the journeys online through the photos taken on the journey, allowing them to fly towards you. These photos could be a collaborative collection taken from multiple users journeys and the online part would allow you see these, which I thought was a great idea.

Will post some more up soon.

Sides to the project

• Technical platform – that provides an online solution compared to other offline solutions
• Cultural/Social – walking through paths of time, cameras becoming locative, the syncing of time and space

Bits and pieces to consider

• Deja Vu clips – separated real time from past events that converge
• Donnie Darko – crazy time spindles
• Mscapers
• Time taken away from space using Cartesian maps
• Maps have no clocks
• Clocks have no maps
• Photography is split from time
• Tom Tom – you can see yourself in space, but you can’t see other people
• Cinema that deals with the digital
• Look into the context behind memory and space – project deals with this heavily
• Hollywood is weak when it comes to space/time – my project can give that Deja Vu moment
• Look into Thrift – the unified model of time – railways – find an interesting angle
• Look into Barbara Adams work

I hope to expand this into an outline of what I will talk about on presentation day very soon.

I’ve had a look at the software and it looks relatively easy to use and bolt in to a flash lite swf so if I can’t find a solution using the windows mobile platform I may have to invest in a GPS enabled phone!

• GPS Log 1.1
• GPS Data Logger
  
• Sunset GPS Logger

I’ve also been looking into hacking TomTom navigation systems. It started off when I read an article by David M Williams about Hacking the Tom Tom through Open Source here which was very interesting. There seems to be a community that has established itself and is quite prominent. TomTom themselves have even acknowledged this open source movement and have funded it.

So this leads me to why. Why do I would I want to use a TomTom for the project? That’s easy. Its portable, it looks like you can do a lot with it and it runs linux. Anything that runs linux must be hackable! People have also hooked up a webcam and displayed the feed through the TomTom. Very cool and I could see myself using that. Anyway here’s some useful links I found:

• OpenTom
• Hacking the TomTom Article
  
• Inside the TomTom
  
• Hacking into TomTom Go
  
• OpenTom Release
  
• Maintech Project
  
• TomTom Hacking
  

I’ve also been thinking about the use of colour as well to represent these routes and the time. To recap I want to show the differing time lapses at of different sections on a course as people are bound to do bits faster or slower than others. So why not use colour? If your faster it could be blue, slower it could be yellow. These in themself can build up contouring time lines to produce some sort of artefact.

Right, I need some rest.

So, I need to find another solution. Here’s a few things I’ve found or thought about;

• HP iPAQs – I borrowed 1 to take to Mscape Fest and I seem to remember some other software being on them which I believe will log GPS data. If there isn’t them I’m sure I can find some.
• I’ve been doing some searches and there’s 1 GPS data logger that keeps coming up time and time again, which is the GlobalStat DG100, link here. It seems to be a very value for money logger but that’s all it does.
• I’ve also found some do it yourself GPS receivers and logger; thomaspfeifer.net, jay-t.de, as well as plenty other on hack a day.
• You can also buy a logger that some one else has made that seems to be very good. Link here. This isn’t available again until the 15th Dec however and its a tad expensive.

I also managed to find a wiki from Openstreetmap.org that has reviewed many GPS devices which should come in handy when deciding where to go next. Link here.

Reading these reviews 1 of the devices seem to be a safe bet: the Scytex NaviGPS. Its water proof, lightweight, compact and great for cyclists. Its a good price too, so that’s another option if everything else fails.

You can get them on PC World business if you go here.

I’m also off to MScapeFest 07 on Monday and Tuesday of next week for some workshops and talks on the HP Ipacs so I’m hoping to learn a thing or 2 that I may be able to apply to my project. I might be cheeky as well and see what I can get out of them. Have a looksie here if your interested.

• Fix my Street
• Chicago Crime
• Mobile Landscape
• Travel Time Maps
• Flickr Places

Each interested me in different ways but a few key theories arose from the discussion. Fix my Street focuses solely on reclaiming responsibility of the street in terms of a social context and Chris told me about a guy called Martin Heidegger who talks about a sense of space, dwellings and how we can’t really relate to the natural earth anymore. Chicago Crime is more of a geo cached database of crimes, so its more to do with caching of the data and time. Mobile Landscape is a strange one but abstracts a function of a device that everyone uses everyday: a mobile phone to create a representation of space. Travel Time Maps was again creating a representation of space through time but what interested me most was the different contours that were created by different time zones. Flickr places featured maps but it wasn’t the main focus, instead social remains dominant over space.

From this we started talking about GPSX data and maybe comparing a set route, completed by different people. From that data you should be able to get the time it took at different stages of the route. You could therefore then compare each route with another and then represent some how the different in time. At some points it might be faster and some it might be slower. Chris was thinking in terms of video so you could have the video slowing down at that point when you were walking the route, similar to how ghost mode works in Mario Kart. This would then create a time experience. On to something here…

So, my task for the next 2 weeks is to have a play around getting a GPS receiver to work so I can record a set route, then maybe get someone else to run it or I could do the route on my bike for example. I’ll then take the GPSX data and represent the data some how, comparing each using an animated graph maybe or something to show the differences at each point. I can then start to translate this into something more substantial as I swap it over to my preferred context, on my bike.

All of these projects can be accessed online, just follow the links below:

All this was done on a white board (picture below) I’ve redone it in photoshop just to make it clear:

Here’s the white board sketches:

So my task now is to find some related projects. Chris has already suggested milkproject.net, Feral Trade, Urban Tapestry and a project involving the London Opera house, GPS and headphones – geocaching stuff. I’ll then need to locate them within my triangle. I’ll update it once I’ve done it.

First off I jogged the route, mounting the sensor to my trainer using a special adapter, just so I could get a good base line reading which I could compare. After which I uploaded it to the Nike+ website which gave me the following results:

Next I cycled the route, again with the sensor still mounted to my trainer using the adapter. This I hoped would work fine but I was proved to be wrong. The results speak for themself:

Flatlined! As you can see it didn’t really do a lot compared to running normally. Obviously it took me less time complete but there’s nothing there! I think what I need to do now is devise a way of mounting the sensor to my bike so it moves similarly to a footstep. I think what was happening here was that the sensor was being subjected to centrifugal forces in an outwards direction giving a constant reading. Think the piezometer inside is very very very sensitive!

On a separate note I think I may have found a method of tracking bikes in real time using a GPS telemetry system by TinyLoc. This is meant for falconry purposes but I’m sure I can modify it so it does what I need it to do. I’ll post some more info up once I know more.

My Nike+ Sports kit turned up today along with the adapter. For those who don’t know, usually you would put the sensor in the sole of a pair of Nike+ trainers, but seeing as I don’t want to spend more money I thought I’d buy the adapter. This basically clips underneath the shoe laces and holds the sensor well. After plugging it up to the Nano and looking like an idiot running on the spot it doesn’t seem to work. I’ll have to calibrate it and take it for a proper test run as well as on the bike.

I think what I’ll do is run a set route around in Plymouth, log the results with the official Nike+ website or use Gordon Labs Runometer software, and then do the same on my bike, comparing the results afterwards. Perhaps then I can figure out how to adjust the workout data accordingly, that’s if it needs to be adjusted I may add!

A sensitive piezoelectric accelerometer monitors your footstrike when you walk or run and determines the amount of time your foot spent on the ground. This contact time is directly related to your pace.

So really its just a piezometer and pressure activated? Thinking about the application I’ll be using it for, ie. on a bike, will it still function as it should? I could strap it to the wheel somehow and see if it recorded any information but this might give a constant reading. I think it might be best to keep it in the shoe and see what happens. Maybe I can adjust the readings to the bike if that makes sense? Saying that it probably won’t give an accurate reading anyway as I won’t always pedal and for it to work effectively my foot has to technically leave the pedal…I think I’ll wait until my kit arrives before I draw any conclusions to what will and won’t work.

What also interested me about the Sparkfun article is their custom made USB to serial adapter to talk directly to the Nike+iPod receiver, meaning you can listen for multiple pod ID’s and maybe do something once it is heard. I feel another project coming on here! Anyway, you buy the boards from their online shop, direct link here, something else for me to buy!

(pictures taken from the article here)

What I find most interesting about it is the support for adding your own GPS data to the workout, which I’m guessing will be plotted onto a map by uploading a gpx data file. Very similar to what I’m trying to achieve in my own project so I will be ordering my own Sports Kit today to see how it all works.

I really need to get hold of a GPS device so I can see what it is capable of in terms of data output as well as the possibility of hooking it up to record data in real time. I really need to see Chris Speed and have a chat about what the University’s IPAQ’s can do just so I can focus more on what I really need to research before plunging into creating something.

I propose to create a system that combines 2 of my interests; mountain biking and mapping but in augmented reality. What I intend to do is map, using Google Maps, the movement of a mountain bike rider in real time, in different public spaces.

I wish to use mobile technologies such as GPS to track the rider in the real world, as well as using a timing system such as that of the Nike+ hardware, that can also translate into the virtual world. What I hope this can do is create a mapped path of real world tracks, such as those found in a local woods, as well as giving a bikers average speed and time over set distances as well infinite ones. Through this I hope to uncover how a mountain biker interacts with physical space as well as generate some kind of virtual narrative artefact that incorporates time.

This will be viewable online and it is hoped that multiple users can map simultaneously, updating the map in real time.

I’m hoping to use GPS technologies, a bit of php and hacked Nike+ Sport Kits. It should be fun!

• Mountain Biking
• Mobile Technologies
• Google Maps

So, I feel why not merge these together some how. I have a rough idea that involves GPS tracking, mapping routes onto Google maps, creating a custom interface to explore these routes and then maybe have an online community that can upload their own.

Another route could explore RFID tags but I feel I need to do a bit more research into their usage and capabilities. I’ve been given the name of Bruce Sterling, a science fiction writer, and the title of his book “Internet of Things”, which relates to tagging, so I will have to track that down and have a read.

At the moment I think I’m more swayed towards the mapping as it is something I would love to explore and really push.