Future Location-Based Experiences
by Professor Steve Benford, University of Nottingham
January 2005
The evolution and convergence of mobile and wearable devices, sensing systems and wireless communications is leading to new kinds of location-based experience in which digital content adapts to users' locations as they move through the physical world.
Location-based experiences are typically delivered to users on mobile devices - phones and PDAs - and are supported by a distributed infrastructure that includes wireless networking and positioning systems that determine users' locations. They therefore represent an extension of current mobile computing towards experiences that are evermore connected and context aware. In this, they are also closely related to areas such as contextual computing, ubiquitous computing, pervasive computing and ambient intelligence.
There is a wide range of potential applications across education including support for fieldwork (e.g. biological science, environmental science, geography, architecture and planning to name a few); support for site visits; as well as supporting more general social and administrative functions including keeping track of friends, delivering navigational assistance to visitors and even enhancing personal safety.
However, beyond these potential applications, there are commercial and social reasons why the education community needs to consider the likely impact of location-based experiences.
This report distils emerging results from the research community, analyses future trajectories for technologies and applications, and discusses the likely impact on the education community, especially opportunities for new applications as well as new challenges to be met.