the Onda

A 3G phone with a solid maps application and a GPS is a godsend in a strange country. I can not believe how many times over the last week I pulled it out to find my way somewhere— a occurence that was all the more surprising by the fact that it was most useful to me for navigating the extensive train/tram/bus public transportation systems in Munich and Cologne, or when used in conjunction with a locally provided map. Battery issues notwithstanding, this was an awesomely powerful tool.

That said, we are only scratching the surface of what is possible. What I'd like to see next is a Shazam for places, signs, and maps. For those that don't know it, Shazam is the best party trick iPhone application out there: hold it near a speaker while music is playing and it will do a fine job of finding out what that music is, providing you with links to information and buying opportunities. Imagine for a second if we could use the phone's camera to decipher subway maps, road signs, and even buildings and other objects by sending an image into a web service that could run OCR, object recognition, etc. and then use the GPS to tighten the results on the metadata provided back. At minimum you could have a decent translation service (desperately needed for languages like German), but the possibilities are endless— from navigating the subway system to discovering the why and how behind strange customs and events.

If it sounds too Star Trek, it is because we've been waiting for this for so long. But thanks to Google's APIs (and other Web 2.0ish open data stores), the sheer compute power available to us in the cloud, and these wonderful new tricorders, we may be just about there.

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