European GPS became 10 X more accurate overnight

In anticipation of the long awaited Galileo GPS sattelites, an intermediary solution named  EGNOS became active a few days ago. The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) locates you within 2 meter within most parts of Europe as opposed to the ‘old’ 20 meter for standard ‘USA powered’ GPS.  Once the €3,4 billion European Galileo project is up and running, consumer satellite receivers on its Open Service using the two available bands (1164–1214 MHz & 1563–1591 MHz) will achieve an accuracy of <4 m horizontally and <8 m vertically. Receivers that use only a single band will still achieve <15 m horizontally and <35 m vertically, comparable to current civilian GPS C/A devices.

EGNOS is a satellite-based augmentation system that improves the accuracy of GPS satellite navigation signals over Europe. “The system consists of transponders aboard three geostationary satellites over the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Europe, linked to a network of about 40 ground stations and four control centers.
 The EGNOS ground stations receive signals sent out by the US GPS satellites. Information on the accuracy and reliability of these signals is relayed to users via the geostationary satellite transponders. This allows them to determine their position to within two meters, compared with about 20 meters for GPS alone.”

EGNOS is similar to the Nord American WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) and Japanese MSAS (MTSAT Satellite Augmentation System).  EGNOS-enabled devices can also receive WAAS & MSAS.

Most recent GPS receivers got shipped as ‘EGNOS’ ready, so without any direct financial charges (that’s what some of those European taxes are for), your navigation device became more accurate overnight.

I quickly checked for TomTom and Garmin and their recent top models all seem to support EGNOS. However I did not find information on the Apple iPhone3GS and HTC Android device EGNOS-readiness. Share your link to a trustworthy source  in the comments below.

Egnos might also boost Augmented Reality applications

Apart from the evident advantages of more accurate positioning (navigation, logistics, shipping, travel, construction, emergency services…) such raised precision is a prerequisite for Augmented Reality (AR) applications, which need to be fed with exact location coordinates to make sense. Today the ’sensors’ are the weak point on consumer devices such as Apple iPhone 3GS and Google Android mobiles. Basically you need a handset with an application that computes information from the GPS receiver (up to 70 meter inaccurate due to buildings obfuscating satellite signals), compass (easily disturbed by metal objects) and camera (’low’ resolutions) to add interaction with “layers” of interest which are added on the screen. With a good mobile data connection you can even pull real-time data from the internet (e.g. Maps or  Wikipedia). The AR application will ‘mash’ these data and 3D-objects up with what you ’see’ on the screen.

I liked the experimental interface above which illustrates there are no limits to future application surfaces. This reminded me of my favorite university professor Pattie Maes and her SixthSense with demo with Pranav Mistry at TED below.

Another great example of available AR technology is the mobile browser by Layar. Game developers are even working on objecs and characters that will appear to move around your environment and allow interaction. Nice bonus for gaming retro geeks, is that the current technological limitations make these first generation AR apps take you back to the arcade times

Let me know if you already enjoy the raised precision

Tags: Android, AR, Augmented Reality, EGNOS, GPS, iPhone, Layar, Sensor precision, SixthSense
Posted in Augmented Reality, Fun, Privacy, Technology, Video | No Comments »

Why I like my MIT data portrait and why you should get yours

Tonight I stumbled upon this MIT personas project, which generates a real time data portrait of your online identity. Apart from being a cool data visualization project, I think it is a great illustration of large dataset processing and an educative warning for on-line privacy. During the processing of one’s character the most information is shown. I was stunned by the animation and personalized content generated by the flash application.  It seems I grew up with my pants down

If you’ve left traces on the internet and aren’t  cursed/blessed with on-line homonyms, you’ll be stunned by how much the internet knows about you. Enter first name & last name here to share feelings about your generated portrait below�

Tags: data portrait, flash, MIT, Personas, Privacy, Technology, Visualisation, Visualization
Posted in Fun, Privacy, Technology, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Video: How to virtualize your face into a realistic 3D avatar

At my other blog, I just posted a slightly off-track video on how I virtualized myself, with the help of a pioneering Belgian tech company, which rules the emerging H2A-conversion industry (Human-To-Avatar). This resulted from my presence at the excellent Plugg event on innovation and entrepreneurship in Brussels, where Dirk Callaerts, the president of Eyetronics gave me a short explanation of their amazing virtualization technology. I discussed the privacy challenges of this technology and accepted to get myself virtualized in a similar way as Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman. Major movie stars use these scans to get their face applied to stand-ins and stunt men. But also because the insurance companies require them to get virtualized, so that expensive movies can be finished, in the unfortunate event something happens to the leading actors.

For those who do not live on a film set, there are many application for this technology too. Think about the gaming industry or online communities. But also the biometrics industry could use these high resolution scans to improve facial recognition application. Another market for these scans is to produce miniature physical copies of your virtual self. The cosmetics industry already knows vanity is a great revenue driver…

Now that I got my face virtualized, I am able to send stand-ins for those dangerous tech interviews in the heated hypervisor battle fields around the world

Which usefull or fun applications can you imagine for this technology? Would you be willing to pay to get your face virtualized & obatin a realistic3D-avatar on your favorite social network?

Tags: 3D, avatar, biometrics, Dirk Callaerts, eyebcom, eyetronics, facial biometrics, Privacy, Toon Vanagt, virtualization
Posted in Fun, Privacy, Technology, Video | 2 Comments »

Making of ‘Erasing David’: Tintin looking for some privacy in Brussels

I made a small contribution to ‘Erasing David’, a project by filmmaker David Bond. For a month David is testing the boundaries of civil liberties by deliberately destroying his identity. Is it possible to disappear from ‘the system’ anno 2009? To push this experience a little further, he has top private detectives tracking him down. Instead of digging a hole to easily go underground for a month, David seems to keep a normal life style. He contacted me via text messaging (UK mobile number) and paid for our lunch with his credit card (yes, there is such a thing as ‘free lunch’ during the credit crunch We met at the rooftop of the Old England art nouveau building, which now houses the Musical Instruments Museum. If David is really paranoid about privacy, using a mobile phone and credit card seem bad ways to remain digitally unnoticed…However, it would be interesting to learn if those private detectives managed to get hold of these sensitive data.

Making of ‘Erasing David’: Tintin looking for some privacy in Brussels from Toon Vanagt on Vimeo.

We discussed facial recognition, finger print technology, on-line search logs & cache, social networks, activity stream events, micro-blogging, geo-tagging, ccTV, PKI key signing and many more privacy related topics. I pointed David to the latest iPhoto feature (part of Apple’s iLife09), which introduces facial recognition into consumer software. It is easy to imagine similar or even more powerful facial recognition features on Flickr, Facebook, Netlog and Google Images. We “name tag” the people we recognize in our album and these ‘application providers’ complete the tagging effort on the rest of ‘their’ online picture collection. Are you sure there are no pictures out on the internet, in which you prefer to remain anonymous?

Being British, David was amazed by my Belgian indifference to carry an electronic identity card. It must not have helped that he just interviewed Paul Rusesabagina (the hotel manager of Hotel Mille Collines, whose extraordinary actions were the basis for Hotel Rwanda) who learned him that during the 1994 genocide at road blocks a Hutu- or Tutsi-label on a Rwandan ID, were not a matter of iLife, but of real life or dead.

David really wanted to know “Is there anything on your Belgian ID card now, that could prejudice you in the future…Even if it is hard to imagine?” I had never given that question much thought, but even without information on ‘race’, religion or sexual preference, I must admit my card does hold my place of birth (Bruges in Flanders) and preferred administrative language (Dutch). “Ethnically” that would easily classify me as being ‘Flemish’, a 10% minority in Brussels, but a majority in Belgium. Nobody in his right mind expects Belgium to ever fall apart in a violent way… But then again, neither did the Rwandan people… Anyway, negative future consequences for my language indicator are the least of my concern. Being multilingual, I could even choose French as administrative language in Brussels…but my very Dutch first name would always give me away at a road block.

How paranoid are you about your ID card? Should we be more concerned about the data it contains in the event Belgium ever drifts apart?

PS: ‘Erasing David’ is a cinema documentary for Channel 4. I realize this post creates a small breadcrumb for those private eyes on the lookout for David. Since he left the building, there is need to go looking for him here anymore…

Tags: Belgian ID card, David Bond, Erasing David, Privacy
Posted in Privacy | No Comments »