Confidential to Karoli: Geo Location

Hi Karoli. I’ve been developing something related to what your talking about, for RoboCal. In my case, I’ve been doing it to support what I call RoboTweets, which are audio tweets that get plotted on a map.

If I understand what you’re trying to do, I think I can adapt my system. The idea is to send a direct message to the Twitter user “robocalinfo”. This message is then sent to the Google geocoding software to come up with a latitude and longitude to plot on a map.

The cool thing is, Google Maps is good at processing input in various forms. Thus, the following direct messages will result in a lat and longitude being determined:

D robocalinfo New York, New York

D robocalinfo 200 Lincoln Avenue, Portsmouth, NH

In the case of my RoboTwitter tool, I attach an audio message to the plotted location. But if you just want to find out where people are, the same idea can be used.

Let me know if you’re interested.

Thanks,

Ted Gilchrist

Look Ma, I’m an Innovator!

I guess that lays to rest any doubts in the matter. (Note to T.V. Raman: This official logo ain’t got nothin’ on my Google Visitor Pass)

Conversations With the Cloud

Just got back from the Venture Summit. I just want to clarify: I will not be pursuing venture capital at this time. The venture capitalists were a good, cordial audience, and they even laughed at my jokes. But it’s only fair that if I don’t want a relationship with them, right now, then they don’t want one with me, right?

Rather, I will push ahead with development, features like RoboCal Voice Notes, and other to-be-announced location-based services.

And dude, I am all over the new Amazon database thing when it comes out.

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now,

From client and server, but still somehow

It’s clouds illusions I recall

I really don’t know clouds, at all.

Beam Me Up, Scotty

I just got an invite to attend the Dow Jones Mobile Technology Summit conference.

Google Developer Podcast: Accessibility

Got a chance to listen to T.V Raman, yesteday, on my bike ride, on the Google Developer Podcast. My guess he’s the absolute world expert on accessibility, from the perspective of 100% reduced vision. (I hope that’s a politically correct way to say it.)

I got a chance to visit with T.V. last year, after walking away with 2nd place in the Etel Telephony Mashup contest. (Oops, did I just say that?) .

Confidential to T.V: I meant to tell you, I was operating at that point on about 2 hours of sleep, due to various travel details, so I might not have been as scintillating as is normal for me. And sorry for leading your dog in the wrong direction as you two led me to the exit.

I came away from that meeting with a clear understanding that in the world of text-to-speech there is a WIDE spectrum, with absolute usability at one end, and absolute functionality at the other.

And here’s the twist. T.V. and his cohorts are at the functionality end. They don’t really care what the voice sounds like, they just crank it up to a million miles an hour and let it rip. On the other hand, you have sighted folks who want the robot to sound like Doris Day, (or Rock Hudson, or, er Gary Grant).

You haven’t lived until you’ve heard talking Emacs read Python code, complete with special voices for function and variable names.

Anyway, I was sorta hoping that T.V. would mention our chat, and RoboCal, but it was not meant to be. He did mention, however, that he is interested in creating voice-based clients for each Google service with an API.

So, for now, I don’t think I’ll tell T.V about the new RoboCal, with turn-by-turn voice driving directions. I need to get a head start on Google.

So, mum’s the word, ok?

Breakfast at TIffany’s

Yes, but how to get there? Stay tuned: By hook or by crook, I hope to have a fun demo up on the RoboCal home page by this Sunday.

Color me enigmatic.

Watch My Tracks

I’m more and more convinced lately that gps tracking is where it’s at. That’s where you tap into you cell phone’s innate abilty to know your latitude and longitude. That’s the maddening thing about it, the phone knows, but most carriers refuse to let you access that information.

There are a few exceptions. First, there are a couple of free services that have been able to break through the cone of silence surrounding your poor little phone. One is Mologogo. I came very close to ditching my ATT and signing up for this, but there’s a big catch. You need Nextel, and Nextel doesn’t need to give me the coverage I need. Another is hipoqih, but I got a bit nervous about the service being based in I think Spain.

I’ve decided to throw in my lot with uLocate, which, by a happy twist, is located right down in Boston. Currently, their service works with Sprint.

I don’t want to say to much, before I’ve got something implemented. But I have high hopes about this service. What I plan on doing is to create a widget, that will run on your Sprint phone. You’ll click a button, which will cause it to call RoboCal, passing it your latitude and longitude. RoboCal will take this information and run with it.

I can’t wait to get my new phone!

TAGS:
text-to-speech,mobile,gps,

Google Docs Has Presentations

Specifically, my Ignite Boston talk.

(Confidential to readers of this blog. I received almost no bounce from this event. But as near as I can tell, neither did anyone else.)

TAGS:
text-to-speech,mobile,gps,

Pause Key

Ok, now when listening to directions, you can hit 5, to pause. Then hit any key to continue. I expect that this will prove real useful during those quick turns, like when you’re dumped off the freeway onto city streets.

TAGS:
text-to-speech,mobile,gps,

Back from Beantown

Ok, that was pretty fun. I’ll know better how the talk went when they put up the videos. I can say that I definitely wasn’t booed off the stage in a wave of drunken catcalls.

The most exciting part was getting there. I had entered Ignite Boston and the Government Center garage as two separate appointments. That way, good old RoboCal was able to tell me how to get to the garage, and from there, how to get to the event. It also told me how to get back.

Ok, I admit it, I got slighly lost on the way to the garage. But, never fear, I just pulled over and “took a fix” with my GPS, and RoboCal was able to send me on my way. This has the effect of giving a RoboCal excursion the flavor of a sea voyage, where the first mate hauls out the sextant to take a fix.

I woke up this morning in a cold sweat, knowing what I must do next. Look for a Pause Button feature, or some such, in upcoming patch releases.

The Holy Grail? Getting a reasonably inexpensive phone to transmit GPS coordinates to RoboCal. It’s pretty hard to drive down the highway juggling a Garmin Etrex and a cellphone. At least, I’d love a nice big screen totally devoting its real estate to nice big fat longitude and latitude values!