Invisibles
I’ve used a smartphones with GPS mapping for about 6 months now and it’s completely changed how I navigate through the city by foot. Before I would walk off in the assumed direction of my destination and, every fifteen minutes or so, check my position via the maps posted in bus shelters. Now all I need do is pull out my smartphone on the street, every five minutes, and check the relative positions of the two glowing blobs.
I wish I could sense these things, like an urban-superpower, rather than just having a more convenient way of looking at maps. (As I mentioned here ages ago, technology should require less human interaction the more advanced it gets, so how advanced could a phone be if you’re constantly jabbing at it?)
The Ovi Maps app, on a Nokia X6 I’ve used, had a nice feature where it would vibrate the phone in your pocket if it thought you’d taken a wrong turn. Of course it also successfully directed me to a random location 2km away from the destination I’d requested and almost completely ran down the battery. Untrusted, it was barely used again.
The Satnav in my Dad’s car uses the voice of a sitcom character to provide directions. While I do walk with headphones in, I’m sure I’d find this a little annoying when walking. Besides, I never plan routes, just point me in the right direction. I’m happy enough to use technology to navigate around obstacles when I hit them, rather than perpetually assuming their existence.
But, given I’m walking around with headphones on maybe the destination could announce itself like some kind of simulated urban racon (radar beacon). Every couple of minutes the audio you’re listening to drops out and you hear a ping from your destination. Your location relatively locatable (using simulated binaural techniques HRTF, distance conveyed in both volume and frequency). Any maybe not just a set destination, you might have distinct signatures for bus stops, cash points, your lost children, riot police, etc.
Is this something that already exists in some consumer form? Is it even plausible with current smartphones? I think the only iPhone app I’ve used with binaural sound is “Papa Sangre” and that doesn’t seem as good as some of the simple demo recordings I’ve heard.
Even assuming sophisticated audio processing, I guess one issue would be that, while a phone has the GPS, gyroscope and compass, it has no way of knowing what direction the user’s head is pointing. (Future PAN headphones should include tiny solid state compasses? Easy-adjust left/right configuration.) There are all sort of inferences it could make (e.g. you’re likely facing the direction you’re moving, rather than moonwalking) but, unless you can trust the information coming from a navigation device, it’s essentially noise.
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