Mobile Monday Barcelona - Location-Based Services December 3, 2007

The next MobileMonday Barcelona event on December 3 covers Location-Based Services. Since Nokia introduced the Nseries N95 with built in GPS, Location-Based Services are becoming exciting again. Google Maps API and flickr’s geotagged photo function show we’re heading to really interesting services build on the location of the user. Next Monday, we’ll have a closer look on what’s in the labs and coming in this area.

Speakers this time include Fabien Girardin - who will present WikiCity a MIT affiliated project that features innovative ways to understand and communicate the dynamics of the city; Börkur Sigurbjörnsson - who will talk about two research prototypes from Yahoo! Research Berkeley: ZoneTag and TagMaps; Andres Ribera of Spanish startup Hipoqih, a Google Maps mashup that aims to create a mobile social network with GPS geolocation and Ilja Goossens, of yoMedia (Netherlands), who will talk about their video content delivery platform linked to outdoor advertising. Don’t hesitate to register and/or confirm your presence for this event, only 150 seats available.

Speakers:

Fabien Girardin - Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science and Digital Communication in the Interactive Technologies Group (Department of Informmation and Communication Technologies) at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain.

Fabien is also affiliated with the Senseable City Lab (Department of Urban Studies and Planning) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, USA. His current investigation explores the integration of ubiquitous technologies in the everyday urban environments. More specifically, he studies the design of location-aware applications that take into account the limitations of technologies. In his talk he will present WikiCity a project that features innovative ways to understand and communicate the dynamics of the city. This work draws implications the design of future location-based services.

Andres Ribera, CEO of Hipoqih (Spain)

hipoqih.com is a web 2.0 project and Google Maps mashup that aims to create a mobile social network with GPS geolocation. Its killer app is “Follow me”. It’s a web-based program that provides the ability to quickly share your position and where you are going. hipoqih.com uses positioning systems like GPS that allows to record geolocated alerts and to receive them in mobile terminals. The hipoqih.com plugins are free and available for PDA with Windows Mobile, Smartphone and PC with Windows XP, but will soon branch out and include Nokia N95, and GNU-Linux. You can read their User Guide at http://www.hipoqih.com/downloads/hipoqih.User_guide_v0.2.pdf.

Börkur Sigurbjörnsson, researcher at Yahoo! Research in Barcelona

Börkur’s research areas are Search Technologies and Media Experiences. Börkur received his PhD from the Informatics Institute of the University of Amsterdam in 2006. He will talk about two research prototypes from Yahoo! Research Berkeley: ZoneTag and TagMaps. Zonetag is a tool for uploading photos from moblie phones to Flickr. It can tag the photos with the location in which they were taken and suggest additional tags for the photos. TagMaps is a toolkit to visualize tags geographically on a map. I will present a prototype where TagsMaps are used to geographically browse ZoneTag photos, and other geotagged photos.

Ilja Goossens, co-Founder yoMedia (Netherlands)

yoMedia provides a platform that enables clients and consumers to easily aggregate content and to automatically convert and distribute video, audio and images to multiple platforms with a strong focus on mobile devices. The company’s focus is on how to integrate mobile devices and services into the total media mix that covers platforms like TV, outdoor advertising, internet and of course mobile phones. Ilja worked as a lead Flash Developer and Interaction Designer at Endemol Interactive, where he was responsible for projects like the online game engine for ‘Deal or no Deal’ and the mobile version of ‘Fear Factor’. He combines his creative skills with an entrepreneurial spirit to build innovative and successful products with a focus on upcoming, international markets.

Networking
As usual, a networking party will follow the conference where participants will enjoy a glass of cava while sharing experiences about life and work. Attendance is free; all you need to do is register and/or confirm your presence for this event at www.mobilemondaybarcelona.com/subscribe/ to reserve one of the 150 seats available. Book now to avoid being left out!

* 19h00 Registration and Pre-Networking
* 19h30 Location-Based Services speaker sessions & discussion
* 20h45 Cocktail and Networking Party
* 21h30 End

Venue: Auditorium University of Pompeu Fabra - França Building (Edifici França), Passeig de Circumval·lació, 8 - Barcelona 08003

Location and Directions here at Google Maps.

MobileMonday is a community of mobile professionals organised around local networking events in almost 40 cities around the world. This open community promotes the mobile industry and fosters cooperation and networking among industry people and their companies by providing opportunities for personal and virtual contacts.

MobileMonday Barcelona is organised by Rudy De Waele, Carles Ferreiro and Barcelona Media.

Our Partners
Our thanks to our partners Telefónica Movistar, Vodafone, Alcatel-Lucent, MyStrands and Agora 22@ for their invaluable support.

Official Website: http://www.mobilemondaybarcelona.com/