Emergence of the information surperhighway is providing new opportunities for delivery of geographic information to mass markets. In particular, telecommunications companies such as Telstra are actively pursuing GIS as an interface to interactive directory, entertainment, and home shopping systems. Market trials have demonstrated consumer acceptance of GIS, but currently map data is poorly handled by existing multimedia server technologies.
Geographic Information Systems and digital maps are emerging as a key enabling technology for interactive services on the information superhighway. Because so much information that people need in their everyday lives relates somehow to geography, consumers need GIS to help them navigate the new world of broadband interactive services.
Around the world, telecommunications and Yellow Pages companies are currently testing a range of online interactive services, many of which include GIS components. Unlike conventional cable television services, planned interactive TV services will provide a 'back-channel' from the home to the media server that enables two-way communication - 'interactivity'. Interactive broadband networks will carry an assortment of services from games and pay TV to home shopping and news.
Entertainment services -- such as sporting telecasts where the viewer chooses not just which match to watch but also the camera angle, or game shows where the viewer competes for prizes -- are expected to be the main driver of the new consumer network. However information services also figure highly in services currently under development.
Take an illustration of electronic Yellow Pages to show the close integration required between GIS and directory services on interactive TV. For this exercise, assume that I'm at home and I need a local supplier of computer software. Laying back on my lounge room sofa, I reach for my remote control and select the Yellow Pages channel. Using the 'air mouse' pointing device built into my remote, I select the 'map query' icon. I zoom into my general locality.
Now it is time to turn to a more conventional approach. Using the air mouse, I select the Software classification, and see a scrolling list of perhaps five suppliers, representing only those in my chosen locality. I take the time to browse the advertisements for each of these (a couple include a 15 second video clip).
I now turn to the digital map once again to illustrate the location of my chosen store. Getting there looks a little complex, so just for safety I print out a map and set of directions.
The scenario illustrated is not ready for large scale commercial roll-out, but nor is it just science fiction. This type of functionality will be delivered to the home in technologically advanced countries over the next 2-3 years, and is the subject of prototype multimedia directories currently being market tested by a diversity of directory and telecommunications companies.
Systems with much of this functionality are already being trialed in kiosk-based public access terminals, and in hotel-room trials in a number of US cities sponsored by companies including US West and Bell Atlantic.
Market research results from these commercial trials conducted principally in the US have shown that consumers find maps integrated with online services in this way an intuitive, natural, means of accessing the maze of information that can sit behind the interactive TV system. Indeed, initial results are suggesting that successful GIS integration will be an important influence on consumer acceptance of online directory/buying guide services.
The query illustrated provides only one simple illustration of how maps may be used to reach a supplier, in the 'Yellow Pages' environment. Given the positive consumer reaction to Yellow Pages trials, it is likely that geographic interfacing will also be found useful for residential (White Pages) directories. Ideally, the interactive TV consumer will be provided the option of geographically illustrating any address information on the interactive network.
One telco with a commitment to GIS technology is Telstra Corporation (Telecom Australia). Telstra has a 15-strong GIS group within its electronic directories division focused upon using GIS technology to facilitate contact and communication in new and innovative ways.
The group, Spatial Decision Systems, provides services targeted at the Business Geographics market (Spatial's achievements have included development of the leading geocoding system GeoMatch and Australian geodemographic segmentation system Constellation). Spatial is currently focusing upon some of the opportunities - and threats - presented to the paper directory business by the information highway.
Telstra's first experiments with providing directory information over the information surperhighway are now appearing on the Internet. Telstra has aready launched an Internet version of its Yellow Pages (find it at yellowpages.com.au). The current prototype doesn't include maps, but the first Internet release of White Pages will provide significant GIS functionality.
Telstra's own fully digital interactive TV network is currently being constructed. Although only 100,000 homes in Melbourne and Sydney have been cabled so far, the number will increase to four million by 1999. Telstra will source content from its joint venture with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (named 'Foxtel'), as well as its White and Yellow Pages businesses and other service providers.
Whilst it is comparatively straightforward to prototype online directory/buying guide services incorporating GIS, there are two technological challenges to be overcome before services can be rolled out to every television:
- real-time geocoding of large, constantly churning directory databases with close to 100% accuracy; - integrating support for spatial queries into the multimedia hubs of the interactive network.
At present, handling of geographic queries in mainstream multimedia authoring systems is crude, and generally involves treating the map as any other graphical object - with a resultant loss of all geographic intelligence. Conventional GIS or desktop mapping systems also fail to provide an adequate foundation for a real-time, fast, multiple-user geographic interface server that integrates seamlessly with the rest of the multimedia environment.
There is also much scope for application developers to explore better means of delivering GIS over narrowband networks. Effective delivery of geographic interfaces poses a real challenge to services delivered over narrowband networks, (services like Compuserve and the Microsoft Network, and most Internet users) because of the shortage of available bandwidth and the size of GIS images.
Client-server technology, with incremental updates of a locally stored map base, is an opportunity that provides a promising means of improving responsivness of GIS applications over narrowband. Effective means of providing incremental updates of remote databases will be particularly important in applications where broadband connections are not feasible, for instance in assocation with vehicle navigation systems.
There are two emerging technologies that are about to transform GIS from a specialist, introspective technology, into familiar consumer-oriented technology. One of these is personal navigation - the car guidance systems that are already being fitted as standard items to premium cars. Interactive directory services represent an even more pervasive technology that will soon be arriving in our homes via the PC and very soon the television.
Corporations that stand to profit from consumer-oriented GIS cannot be content with tweaking existing technologies and geographic databases. Today's GIS specialists enjoy technical challenges and have been prepared to tolerate deficient databases and human-machine interfaces.
Tomorrow's consumer will demand not only greater accuracy in spatial databases, and new GIS authoring tools, but also an entirely different form of user-friendly digital map. The conventional road centreline database, which has been the engine driving the adoption of GIS by business, is crude by comparison with the full color, cartographically tweaked paper street directories that consumers have been using for years.
Corporations such as Telstra are closely watching development of navigable road database standards such as GDF, which may be equally useful for consumer-oriented directory applications.
A number of waves of GIS software environments have been evident to date. The first was associated with mainframe computers, this was followed by workstations and now desktop computers. The mainstream GIS vendors rode the wave from mainframe to workstation but have since been challenged by rapid growth in the desktop market. It is as yet unclear whose technology will lead the market in high- end interactive multimedia technology, and even less clear who will provide GIS technology in this environment.
In conclusion, the information superhighway will soon begin to multiply the number of people who use GIS as part of their daily lives. It will also transform the market for spatial data, and the enivironment for software vendors. In the context of this Esri user conference, telecommunication companies will be very interested to learn from our colleagues at Esri what tools they can deliver as we enter the 'on-ramp' to the infobahn.
Yellow Pages, White Pages, Telstra, and Spatial Decision Systems are trademarks of Telstra Corporation.
Stephen Owens
Manager, Telstra Spatial Decision Systems
Telstra Corporation (Telecom Australia)
4th floor, 37 Prospect Street
(Locked Bag 27 PO)
Box Hill, Victoria 3128
Australia
Telephone: (+613) 892 9275 (or 9892 9275)
Facsimile: (+613) 892 9266 (or 9892 9266)
E-mail: sowens@ventnds1.telecom.com.au
Adam Game
Manager, Telstra GIS Portfolio Review
Telstra Corporation (Telecom Australia)
4th floor, 37 Prospect Street
(Locked Bag 27 PO)
Box Hill, Victoria 3128
Australia
Telephone: (+613) 892 9267 (or 9892 9267)(
Facsimile: (+613) 892 9266 (or 9892 9266)
E-mail: agame@ventnds1.telecom.com.au