http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/12871983.htm
GPS helps your PDA know where you are
By Mike Langberg
Mercury News
I'm being beckoned into the courtyard of Project Artaud, a co-
operative residence and work space for artists in San Francisco's
Mission District.
``Come in, come in, beyond the metal gate, and introduce yourself,''
says a friendly female voice through headphones connected to a
Hewlett-Packard rx3715 personal digital assistant slung on a black
sash around my shoulder. The PDA is connected to a small global
positioning system receiver, so this electronic companion knows I'm
standing exactly in front of the gate on Alabama Street between 17th
and Mariposa streets.
The invitation was part of a fascinating fusion of art and technology
called ``Scape the Hood,'' which I spent an hour experiencing Monday
afternoon.
The technology part comes from HP's research lab in Bristol, England,
which has spent three years developing a framework for what it calls
``mediascapes.''
Mediascapes are short audio vignettes, usually 30 seconds to three
minutes long, that are stored in a PDA. The PDA knows its location by
tapping signals from positioning system satellites, and plays the
vignettes whenever the user reaches a designated position.
The vignettes can be anything: historical anecdotes, interviews with
people who live in the area or just random music.
Scape the Hood, the first mediascape staged in the United States, is
a collaboration between HP, broadcaster KQED and Mission District
community artists.
From Friday through Monday, in conjunction with the annual Digital
Storytelling Festival at KQED's Mission District building, about 170
people donned one of 20 sashes and walked through the three-block
mediascape.
At Project Artaud, as I circled the outside of the former can
factory, I heard artists talk about how the co-op started. I learned
the bricks on the sidewalk came from the former factory's furnace.
In the next block, I heard a burbling stream, the hooting of an owl
and the chirp of crickets -- along with the voice of another woman
telling me about the marshes and meadows that covered the Mission
District when its only residents were Ohlone Indians.
At the Mission Village Market, which runs a community flea market
every Saturday morning, I listened to the weekly drum circle and
heard a man talk about finding a precious antique beer stein in one
of the stalls.
For the hour I was listening to Scape the Hood, I felt I was living
in two worlds at once. I saw and heard the street scene around me,
but also got a sensation of physically moving through another scene
created by the sound clips cascading one after another through the
headphones.
At one point, I heard the jingle of ice cream bells and couldn't tell
-- until I turned my head around -- that a real push-cart ice cream
vendor was coming down the block.
I probably listened to about half the 70 vignettes created for Scape
the Hood; I would have had to circle around a second time to hear
them all.
HP's Bristol lab is giving away the software to create mediascapes
and envisions a wide range of applications.
By connecting a heart monitor, for example, a PDA or cell phone with
GPS could recommend the best route for an optimum workout for a
runner or cyclist. Mediascapes could also create a whole new category
of mobile games.
``We've allowed people who aren't computer experts or technologists
to create things that are meaningful to them,'' said Jo Reid, who
heads the Bristol program and came to San Francisco for the U.S. debut.
The biggest mediascape to date ran for three weeks in April 2004 at
the historic Queen's Square in Bristol. Called ``Riot 1831,'' the
collection of 140 vignettes re-created a political protest for voting
rights that turned deadly when saber-wielding dragoons slaughtered
several hundred Bristol residents.
Reid says about 700 people walked in and around Queens Square to
experience the audio re-creation of the three-day confrontation.
Abbe Don, who has the intriguing title of Senior User Experience
Designer at HP's main research lab in Palo Alto, pulled together all
the participants for Scape the Hood.
Don calls Riot 1831 ``the first ever GPS-enabled radio play.''
The software created by HP could ultimately work on any mobile
electronic device with GPS, with the vignettes downloaded in advance
or streamed through a wireless data network.
Cell phone providers are hard at work introducing what they call
location-based services, or LBS. There's a dark side to LBS, with
cell phones becoming tracking devices that could tell anyone from
your parents to your spouse to your boss where you are. LBS could
also be used to send unwanted advertising, such as ringing your phone
to offer a coupon when you're walking or driving by a store.
Scape the Hood is a welcome reminder that location tracking can also
be used to create new ways for artists to express themselves, and for
all of us to learn about the world in which we live.
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