A term paper on “Location based digital badge integrated on a portable device”

Submitted by: Shashidhar Shenoy N

Roll Number: 10BM60083

st
MBA, 1 Year, Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur

As part of the subject “Management Information Systems”

Instructor: Dr. Prithwis Mukerjee

1. Abstract
A location based digital badge is a combination of hardware and existing software on a portable
device which will combine the advantages of Global Positioning System, social networking
information, personal information and the local settings in a manner that can be deployed in many
practical situations. From tracking inventory efficiently, getting location based updates such as
weather, restaurants, social events, etc, this device can even support sensing, i.e., sense your regular
course of action and suggest changes in case of contingencies. This can also be used as
broadcasting identity and schedule over the mobile device which makes it easy for friends to track
and follow.

2. Introduction
Location based Services are the order of the day. Be it marketing products to the target customers, or
tracking inventory accurately, location sensing forms a very integral part of the business. Much of the
GPS systems which are an essential part of providing this service are already in place and almost all
areas of the earth have been covered by this. Also, the ubiquitous presence of mobile phones with
fully integrated GPS devices has already taken care of the hardware requirements that these kind of
services demand. However, there is a lot of scope for innovations in incorporating sensors and
artificial intelligence in these systems so that a revolutionary technology can emerge out of it. If this
is done to its potential, the next wave of mobile devices will not only have features like telephony,
calendar, music, video, maps, etc but will be intelligent enough to converge all these in a manner that
addresses our requirements of social networking and location sensitive information.
The idea of a Location based badge is an attempt to explore this possibility in the near future and how
this innovation can be used by companies to base their business models and reap rich dividends for
themselves. Existing location based services can be enhanced to include social networking
information and personal preferences of the individual, user-generated content can be incorporated
into this and the end result can be an “always-on” location sensor which can publicly broadcast all
information about an individual to the web for other people to see. With innovations such as these,
even the privacy and legal aspects should also be considered and even these are highlighted in a
separate section.

The approach is three-fold:

a. Where the existing technologies stand at the moment

b. What does the proposed innovation mean and its business implications
c. Research on this area and prediction of where they will head towards in the coming years

3. Current Location Based Systems

There is already a lot of research and development that is happening in location based services. Most
of these have been rolled out already. Figure 1 shows the current situation in Location based
services. The emphasis is more on the hardware side. The usage patterns are explained briefly
below:

Figure 1: Existing system for LBS

Advancement in positioning methods are now able to track a device to its last latitude and longitude.
The Global Positioning Satellites [1] are very efficient in outdoor locations but fail to detect the
position in harsh weather and deep interiors. In such situations, GSM assisted positioning methods
will be used to speed up the location detecting giving a rough idea of the cell in which the device lies.
This information can then be used to track the position accordingly which is known as “assisted GPS”
[2]. As shown in Figure1, this information is enough for applications like maps, compass, driving
directions, etc which will help in navigation. A few advertising companies are also making use of this
services to send location sensitive alerts such as restaurant information, shopping deals at local
malls, etc to the consumers directly on their mobiles. Here is a summary of the current applications of
location based services:

• Point to Point Navigation: The pre-loaded maps on the mobile device will be used to mark
the current location. If a destination is specified, then the navigation software will
automatically calculate the nearest route, the alternate routes and the estimated time required
to reach the destination. It offers free turn by turn voice navigation too. The main players in
this arena are Google with its Google Maps Navigation, Nokia with Ovi Maps, etc. The
revenue model for these companies is usually from the navigation licenses that the users
purchase in order to use this software.

Figure 2: A Voice enabled Navigation software using Google Maps [3]

• Inventory Tracking: A GPS based receiver is embedded in all the transport vehicles. This
will give the exact location of the transport vehicle at any given point of time and helps in
tracking inventory. Though this seems to be a very easy solution, it can be easily manipulated
by the drivers of the transport vehicles. Also, the location sensing itself can fail under harsh
weather conditions, which leads to less efficient tracking and sometimes a complete failure to
track.

• Checkins by Foursquare: FourSquare is a mobile application that is available for high-end

smart phones with internet access [4]. It lets users to “check in” to a place where they are
located and explore friends who are in that area. The other friends can then join or send their
status updates about their location. It also lets people know more about the places their
friends visit and lets them plan their trips or activities accordingly. However, this is still a very
 high-end concept and there is a limit to the checkins that are allowed per day. Also, it requires
user to enter their locations manually which may make them lose interest after a while[5]

• Google Latitude: This is another service which is based on location. Unlike Checkins where
users enter their data manually, Latitude uses GPS and GSM based positioning to update the
location of the current device and broadcasts the information to people whom the user likes to
share the information with. However, this application has had huge privacy concerns about
the users’ location getting automatically updated and broadcast without the user’s consent [6]
further enhancements in this technology can make it close to what a digital badge is expected
to become.

• Airtel Friend Finder: This is a location based service which was started by Indian
telecommunication giant Bharti Airtel. It is different from the other services in the sense that it
uses GSM related information only to track people. Also, this service is not limited to people
having smart phones alone. It can be used by anyone and everyone who has a mobile phone.
Hence the reach of the service is much broader and it is expected to fetch more revenue
based on volumes alone. However, since the service happens on a USSD based interface, it
will be cumbersome to use and people would prefer an easy to use interface for such
services.[7]

• Simple apps like ‘I parked here” – These are apps that are small, simple and sell for $1 or $2
on Smartphone application stores like Nokia’s OVI Store or Apple’s iStore. They are designed
to make use of the simple location information available from the GPS and store it and
retrieve it when the user demands it. Often, the time between the storage and retrieval is very
short and might not even last for more than one battery charge-discharge cycle. An example
app is the “I parked here” app. It makes a note of the exact location when you park the vehicle
in a shopping mall such that you can walk back to your car after shopping.

• Weather information – The most ubiquitous of all location based services is the simple
weather updates which is nowadays available in any portable device. It gets the location
information on the device and gets the local weather update on the phone from the local
server. This can be used by any application or even displayed as a widget on the home
screen of the portable device.
 Figure 3: Weather information display on Windows7 laptop

• Local restaurants and events information: Even this service is almost ubiquitous today. It gets
the location information from either the GPS or GSM based positioning gets the local news
from a local server. This is then updated to the user in the form of a message or a USSD
push message. But all these are too trivial and not truly location based when we talk of
advanced location based services. At maximum, they can be SIM location based services and
there is lot of scope for improvements in them.

4. Improvements
As a first step towards implementing the digital badge, an improvement is proposed to the current
location sensing technologies. GPS which uses the 24 satellites that orbit around the earth has its
own limitations in spite of using the A-GPS technology that was mentioned in section 3. It requires line
of sight communication between the device and the satellites, cannot work in harsh weather
conditions and fails completely inside buildings. It also has a large error margin which can be
unacceptable in many cases. The following diagram illustrates the improvements that are proposed to
the current location tracking system.
 Figure 4: Enhanced location sensing on a mobile device

The enhanced GPS satellite uses a technology called augmentation [8] of GNSS (Global Navigation
Satellite System). This will improve the attributes of the GPS system such as accuracy, availability,
reliability, etc. Some of the widely used methods of GNSS are SBAS (Satellite based augmentation
system) where regional augmentation is done through the use of additional satellite broadcast
messages. There is also a differential GPS [9] where fixed reference stations will broadcast the
difference between the positions indicated by the satellite systems and the known fixed positions.
These differences can then be offset by the satellites and a more accurate position can be got.

A further addition to the concept of assisted GPS can be done through the use of social networking
information and contact information in the mobile. This will give a general trend of the user’s location
and that can be directly used as the starting point of the location before the more costly positioning
methods are used.

The diagram shown (figure 4) also shows the other technologies that can be incorporated for accurate
location detection when the mobile device is indoors [10]. There could infrared, Ultrasonic or RFID
based location sensing that can be done. Of these, RFID based sensing seems the most viable
alternative. It works on the principle RFID tags transmitting messages to RFID readers which detect
the location of the tags. These tags can be embedded on a mobile phone and the readers can be
placed along with the main WIFI router in the buildings. However, the research in this area is ongoing
and it needs to be seen how to incorporate such things on existing mobile phones. If the tag-like
functionality can be made available as a firmware upgrade on smart phones, then this idea can really
take off and reach a large segment of users.
Once improvements are done in the area of location sensing, we move to the idea of a digital badge
that is embedded on the mobile device itself. A basic block diagram of the location based badge is
shown in the Figure 5.

Figure 5: Digital Badge block diagram

The digital badge which is proposed will have access to all basic information in the device like
contacts, calendar entries, call logs, maps, etc. It is embedded on the mobile phone itself as a
firmware or even software program that can be installed as an application. The location detection is
optimised in the methods described above. The most important component of this will be the sensor
that is a part of the badge. This will have some intelligence in it to detect the usage patterns and
integrate this information with the available data. This feedback kind of system will regularly check for
information on many aspects and will be intelligent enough to update the same. This when integrated
with the location information will be powerful personalization tool which will be apt for Web3.0

As an example, let us consider the case of Raj living in Mumbai who is an avid blogger, follows
information related to hi –end gadgets, listens to rock music and usually shops at the tech mall for
gadgets. His travel is usually restricted to the cities of Pune and Mumbai. His network of friends is
mostly the likeminded blogging community who blog on high end gadgets available in the market. The
digital badge in his brand new Smartphone will have all this information available and the intelligence
will be updated to suit the current situation. Since most of his friends are from the blogging
community, they could be in different parts of the world. Raj would set his privacy options in such a
manner that his identity and interests will be broadcast to a few select friends of his
In a situation where one of his blogging friends, say Tsou who stays in Philippines is travelling to India
on a quick business trip, it might not be possible for Tsou to publish this information on the social
networking site because of various reasons. But nevertheless, he would also have updated his digital
badge and set the privacy options to broadcast his status to select friends like Raj. It so happens that
both of them have their scheduled appointments on a working day in the same locality of Mumbai.

The badge now works in the following manner: First, it checks the calendar of both the friends and
finds a time where both of them are free. If this time happens to be the lunch time, it tries to match the
eating habits of both the people. Let us say for the moment, that both of them prefer Chinese food
and there are many Chinese restaurants in the locality. The badge finds the best among this using the
spending habits information of these two people, ensures that the distance to the restaurant is
manageable and easily locatable to the two people and sends both of them an alert. Thus, Raj and
Tsou, who would never have had the opportunity to meet each other end up having a nice meal at the
restaurant talking about the subjects that interests them the most – high technology gadgets, without
realising that one of such gadgets had planned everything for them in the background.

Now, let us consider a situation where Raj has been really busy and does not have time to follow
news and happenings. Whenever he gets a little spare time, he plans to watch any movie that’s
playing at the local multiplex. However, there is this concert where the pop icon Bryan Adams [11] is
visiting Mumbai during the weekend. Unknown to Raj, the badge works in the background, checks the
information from the internet and rss feeds of Raj and knows that the rock star is in town. It checks the
ticket prices and availability and if there is a perfect match, alerts Raj. So, the badge has now taken
the location sensitive information and given Raj a surprise by giving him a chance to watch his
favourite singer perform live in action.

As seen from the examples above, the possibilities of the badge are endless. It is limited only by the
imagination and the amount of privacy settings the user sets in the badge.

Developing the Badge’s Intelligence:

Much research is happening in the area of developing Artificial Intelligence which can substitute the
need to collect all information, organize it and present in a manner that is desirable to the user.
Artificial Neural Networks [11], made up of interconnecting artificial neurons can be used to solve
artificial intelligence problems. The artificial neurons are programming constructs that mimic the
properties of biological neurons. The tasks which can be performed by these neural networks can be
broadly classified into function approximation, classification, and data processing. All these can
be used in conjunction in the digital badge. A detailed study on artificial intelligence and neural
networks is beyond the scope of this paper. However, it might suffice to say that these innovations
when combined on a mobile device are capable of providing necessary functionality that is desired by
the badge.

On a much simpler level, the intelligence enhancement of the badge happens through the concept of
hits and misses. The badge’s basic intelligence is tested in a laboratory to suit the most basic
personality types. There are many personality tests such as the MBTI [12] which classify people into
some broad types. For each type of personality, a basic kind of information is fed into the device and
it is then customised based on feedback. Suppose the device gives an alert in the correct manner,
some kind of marking should be given such that the result given is a hit. Suppose an alert is given
which the user does not need, then the result can be considered as a miss. The overall focus of the
algorithm should be in the direction of increasing hits and reducing the number of misses.

Current Research in this area:

As already mentioned, there is considerable research that has gone into developing such intelligent
devices. A branch of physicists are working completely on improving the accuracy and reliability of
positioning systems like the GPS, GNSS, differential GPS, etc. There are also many positioning
methods which are being worked upon for indoor positioning of an object like infrared, ultrasonic and
RFID tag based positioning. More accurate positioning could make use of the 3G or the broadband
wireless technologies to detect the position of the mobile device. Also there is work going on the area
of positioning using the IP addresses of the machines since almost all devices are expected to have a
IP address in the coming days.

There is a new branch of computing which is a radical shift from the era of desktop paradigm known
as ubiquitous computing [13]. In this system, human-computer interacting is integrated into
everyday objects and activities. There is a drive across the industry to replace the conventional user
interface systems like menus, command lines and GUI with a more revolutionary approach. Some of
the “smart” devices that are thought of include small chips which can be worn on hand, mobile pads
and boards. All these focus on miniaturization of the existing devices with more intelligence and
computing power in them. There is also a focus on linking the Ubiquitous computing concepts with the
concepts of context-awareness [14], in which location sensing plays a major role. Context
Awareness lays emphasis on computers which are not only sense the environment but also react to
the changes in it. Thus, there is a focus on making the existing systems aware of the location and add
intelligence in them. A digital badge, which is expected to just that is not far away as far away as
research is concerned. It is now up to the businesses to form revenue models from this kind of a
device and develop it into a commercially viable application. The figure (figure6) given below shows
the concept of context awareness (image source: http://www.dvs.tu-darmstadt.de/ - the website of
Darmstadt University, Germany) [15]
 Figure 6 : Context awareness concept

Image courtesy: http://www.dvs.tu-darmstadt.de/research/percom/research_sub4.html

Privacy Considerations:
In cases such as these, the privacy of the user is paramount when considering the business viability
of the model. Usually, the lower the privacy setting by the user, the higher is the possibilities of the
application. Hence, there is always a trade-off between privacy and revenue. Companies would
always try to increase the revenues by forming very complex privacy policies. But the onus is upon
the user to read through the fine-print and consider the technical issues. Broadcasting location
information is a good thing as long as the user wants people to know about his location. But in a case
where privacy settings are set to very high level, the badge is not a useful tool even if it has enough
intelligence to sense location change and friend finding abilities.

Companies do get into lots of issues because of privacy infringements. For example, Google’s
Latitude service got into trouble because it updated the location of the user without the user’s
consent. Even Facebook has had some privacy issues where users complained that personal
information was being used by the company in an unauthorised manner. Hence the business model
which the companies develop must take into account these intricacies before launching these devices
commercially.
 5. Applications
As already explained in the previous sections, an intelligent location aware badge will find many
applications for end-users, in healthcare and military areas, inventory tracking, etc. A few of the
applications are described in brief here:

Inventory Tracking
The Digital badge can accurately track inventory. Some of the features like RFID tags can be
programmed to operate even when the mobile device is switched off. Thus, it can prevent
manipulation by the truck drivers and can work in harsh weather conditions, making it an efficient tool
to track inventory.

Intelligent Companion
As described in the example of Raj and Tsou in section 4, the digital badge can act as an intelligent
companion by broadcasting your identity, likes and dislikes to few select people. It can connect
people with similar interests together. There are already many web portals which connect people with
similar interests together. Adding location information and making them location aware can help
people find people with similar interests in areas which they had never even imagined before.

Contingency planning based on regular routine events is one more thing this intelligent device is
expected to find use in. As an example, let us consider the case of Shipra who loves shopping at the
City Centre Mall in Kolkata. Her place is 40 minutes away from the mall and she usually takes the
same route every time she goes to the mall. Suppose there has been a blockage on that particular
route due to heavy traffic on a particular day, the badge gets this information from the local traffic
control website and immediately sends out an alert to Shipra by suggesting an alternate route. Thus,
the Badge has taken care of the contingency and saved her a lot of time.

HealthCare
A badge such as this will be very useful in case of emergency healthcare services. It is like a situation
where every doctor in this world holding a big badge citing his specialization and walking around the
place. In emergency situations like train travel or remote expeditions, it will be very useful if a doctor
who has specialized in a particular field is available rather than a general physician who usually
accompanies such trips. A badge which broadcasts each and every person’s information instantly
would help the cause better. Also, location sensing can be used to track the victims very early in case
of natural disasters and help the medical services to reach on time.

These are only a few illustrations of the applications. The actual application of such badge can be in
numerous ways and will come to light when people start using it in the same manner that numerous
uses of Facebook have come to light only recently.
 6. Business environment
Most technology companies have realised that the next decade belongs to the services offered on the
web rather than the software itself and are changing their strategy to become more competitive in this
area. Even hardware companies which were had their core competency in chipset manufacturing or
mobile handset manufacturing have realised that the next big wave comes from services. Nokia, the
mobile telecommunications giant and Intel, the world’s largest chipset manufacturer have together
launched MeeGo [16], an open source operating system to increase their foothold in the services
category. Apple’s launching of iStore, Nokia launching OVI, Google launching Android for mobile
phone, etc are examples of how companies are shifting from their core competencies and entering to
capture a share in the Web3.0 services pie.

Facebook is already a popular service in many parts of the world. It is now seriously considering
providing context aware services. The recent launch of Facebook places [17], which provides users
with the option of sharing their location to friends, is one such step in the direction of location
awareness. Service providers such as FourSquare with their checkins, Gowalla, etc are already in the
location based services market

However, the main players in the market are expected to be companies with a high innovation index
and a business strategy. Google, which is taking over smaller companies which provide location
based service, is already diversifying its business to enter into areas like automobile, etc. A recent
development on this front has been Google developing an automated car steering [18] which can
drive itself in the city. They can use their brand equity and bring innovations such as these in the area
of location sensing.

One big question that concerns all these market players would be how to base their revenue models
upon? In the era of services dominated businesses companies cannot afford to sell these software
one-time and forget all about future services that are needed. Also, most consumers are already
accustomed to free services in the form of Facebook, twitter, etc and may find it difficult to start paying
for services if companies started charging for the same.

An intelligent strategy could be basing revenue in terms of applications as has been done by the
iStore or the OVI store. Along with earning revenues on on-time sale of the digital badge, companies
can also earn money from the intelligent applications which will be reasonably priced and available for
easy downloads. Thus, the companies can earn more revenues by economies of scale and increase
the online traffic. This would also mean more opportunities for network service providers and even
they can enter into partnerships with the companies providing location-based services.
 7. Concluding Thoughts
We started off by examining the existing technologies for location sensing and the current applications
and their business models. Though there is lot of scope for growth in this area, the response from the
general public in using these services has not been on expected lines. Hence, there is a need to
improve the location sensing technologies and add some intelligence to these devices so that a viable
business model could be developed. We explored the possibility of such device in the near future.

Based on the current research in this area and the general shift towards converging all the
technologies like social networking, location based services and ubiquitous computing, we see that
there is a tremendous opportunity for devices like Location Based Badge emerging and becoming a
huge success in terms of technology as well as business idea. The opportunities are unlimited in
terms of its application and utility. However, companies must learn how to play the privacy card well to
reap huge dividends from this innovation.
 8. Glossary of terms
USSD – Unstructured Supplementary Service Data – a service on GSM mobile phones similar to
SMS. The connection is established between the client and the server and the data exchange
happens in form of messages.

RFID – Radio Frequency Identification

Web3.0 –The third generation of World Wide Web where the focus will be on personalization of
content unlike the user-generated content of Web2.0 or the read-only form of older generation
internet.

9. References
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS

[3] Image courtesy: http://www.wirefresh.com/google-maps-navigation-for-android-offers-full-

satnav-tom-tom-in-tears/

[4] http://foursquare.com/about

[5] http://mashable.com/2010/07/01/location-social-media/

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Latitude

[7] http://www.medianama.com/2009/12/223-airtel-pilots-location-based-buddy-finder-service-
review-suggestions/

[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNSS_Augmentation

[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS

[10] LANDMARC: Indoor Location Sensing Using Active RFID - LIONEL M. NI and YUNHAO
LIU, YIU CHO LAU and ABHISHEK P. PATIL Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology, Clearwater Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China, Department
of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA

[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_network

[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBTI

[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_computing

[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_awareness

[15] http://www.dvs.tu-darmstadt.de/research/percom/research_sub4.html

[16] http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/02/15/nokia-and-intel-create-meego-for-new-era-of-
mobile-computing/

[17] http://www.pcworld.com/article/203667/facebook_places_what_you_need_to_know.html

[18] http://techblogy.net/google-develops-automatic-car-steering.html