The MetaPos Project Blog

The MetaPos Final Review in Brussels

metaposuser — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 23:41:44 +0000

The MetaPos team joined staff and evaluators from the Galileo Supervisory Agency (GSA) to take part in the project Final Review on March 3rd 2011. Presentations were given on all the main workpackages along with a demo of the First Location Bank app and web service.

The project has now completed its work and will submit its Final Report to the GSA. Further exploitation will be through the First Location Bank SAS of Toulouse. Interested parties can contact jonathan.raper@placr.co.uk for further details.

Announcing the First Location Bank

metaposuser — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:28:36 +0000

The MetaPos project team are announcing today that the Joint Venture company being formed to exploit the project will be known as the ‘First Location Bank’ (FLB). The new company will be based in Toulouse and headed by Dr Christophe Rhin of Camineo SAS, which will jointly own and run the FLB with Placr Ltd. (UK) and Positium LBS Llc (EE).

The FLB is a location management service that works with Android and Windows Mobile phones (at present), offering secure real-time upload, processing and visualisation of your movement tracks through the FLB web interface. It’s designed for those who want to record and share their movements in real time for business, sporting, security or life-logging reasons.

The FLB offers a robust location data collection platform for GPS, wifi and cell ID sensor data and records phone battery state, all of which are uploaded in real time whenever an internet connection is available. The app will continue data collection and upload later if you go offline. Users can tag their location stream and select a low power mode when battery life is limited. Tracks are stored in the private location accounts of each user and automatically divided into moving and static track sections, each labelled with any user tag that has been added.

The FLB is secure and private, requiring a login on phone and web. No one other than the user and those you authorise can access your location data, and your data is encrypted after collection to keep it safe. The FLB brings something new to location management because you can collect and store location data without giving away any rights in your data in return for the core service. We think location data needs a bank to be a trusted third party and digital self-storage solution.

The FLB will be offered on a freemium model in which the core product will be free to end users, and pro features will be offered on a subscription. The FLB is also looking for developer partnerships to develop use of the location management platform. Beta access to the core service is available now on request to jonathan.raper@placr.co.uk.

MetaPos project is beginning its demonstration phase

metaposuser — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:54:58 +0000

The MetaPos team have just spent a productive week working in the hospitable environment of the Swiss National Park (SNP) Visitor Centre. The SNP is one of the leaders in Location Based Services in Europe and are now entering their 5th season of offering their WebParkSNP digital guide to visitors by device rental and now by app download.

The development team have completed a new MetaPos release in preparation for the Demonstration of the final service. Full client-server integration is now implemented on Android with recording and tagging of location streams, encrypted upload, automated track segmentation and web access to uploaded data. The recorded location streams have accuracy metadata in order to inform usage of the data by developers. A developer programme is under preparation as part of the Joint Venture between Camineo, Positium and Placr to exploit the project.

We will shortly be beginning the Demonstration phase of the project. If you are interested in being a beta tester of our service you should contact jonathan.raper@placr.co.uk for further details.

Team meeting in London to prepare alpha launch

metaposuser — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 09:40:43 +0000

The MetaPos team met in London last week to finalise the alpha release of our positioning platform. We now have client software running on Android and Windows Mobile, collecting positioning streams and uploading to our secure database repository. Our next objective is to add EGNOS support to allow our users to take advantage of corrections and integrity checks provided by Europe’s satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS).

The project is currently setting up a Joint Venture to further exploit the MetaPos platform. Interested parties should contact jonathan.raper@placr.co.uk for further details.

MetaPos being demonstrated at Mobile Tartu

metaposuser — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 23:25:48 +0000

The MetaPos team are delighted to be taking part in the International Conference Mobile Tartu, organised by the University of Tartu and Positium LBS in southern Estonia. The MetaPos platform to measure and record positional errors in multiple location determining streams will be demonstrated to, and tested by, conference participants.

The MetaPos team will begin recruiting for a private beta testing programme next month. Interested parties should contact the project for further information.

Jonathan Raper, Placr Ltd.

MetaPos platform develops new capabilities

metaposuser — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:03:23 +0000

The MetaPos project continues to develop its ‘greybox’ technology to qualify locations reported by different positioning systems on mobile devices. The team have implemented client-server software called PDT Surveyor to record positioning streams from GPS, wifi and cell based sources on mobile devices along with metadata on quality. These positioning streams are stored securely in the cloud can be viewed on the web for a specified time and space window or passed to other applications. MetaPos is now moving to add support for EGNOS messages delivered through the Internet to enhance the positioning at the client and to assure the integrity of the GPS signal.

The team are now working on a business plan for b2b and b2c services that can be built on top of the MetaPos platform and welcome contact from any potential partners.

Jonathan Raper, Placr

The MetaPos concept

metaposuser — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:46:13 +0000

For those who would like to read a little more about the philosophy behind MetaPos, have a look at this article here (PDF) on the UK Location and Timing ‘Knowledge Transfer Network’ site.

The article explains in outline the MetaPos ‘grey box’ philosophy behind the provision of positioning quality information.

jonathan.raper@placr.co.uk

Project meeting in Tartu, Estonia to develop business models

metaposuser — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:30:12 +0000

The project team is meeting in Tartu, Estonia and brainstorming business models for positioning technologies. The focus is on preparing the Technical and Commercial Feasibility Study due in January.

Camineo recently met with the Galileo Supervisory Authority (GSA) appointed business advisors Capital High Tech to discuss the project strategy and we are looking forward to working further with them as the project develops.

Jonathan

Introducing MetaPos

metaposuser — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:39:23 +0000

Welcome to the MetaPos News blog! We will be blogging here about this project to keep you up to speed with our progress over the next couple of years.

What is MetaPos about?

MetaPos is a research project studying the quality and integrity of position determining technologies used in mobile devices. The project is developing tools to ensure that the mobile positioning available for use in location based services is appropriately specified for the application being offered. The project abstract is available at the Galileo Supervisory Authority.

Who is involved in the MetaPos project?

Camineo SAS (http://www.camineo.com/) (Co-ordinator)

Placr Ltd. (http://www.placr.co.uk/)

Positium (http://www.positium.com/)

Who is funding MetaPos?

MetaPos is being funded by the EU 7th Framework Information Technology and Society Programme in partnership with the Galileo Supervisory Authority. The project will run from July 2009 – January 2011.

What are the project deliverables?

The project will deliver specifications, components and services for mobile positioning quality assessment for a range of application areas.

Contact us

If you are interested in the work of the project, please contact the blog editor Jonathan Raper (jonathan.raper@placr.co.uk).