HANOVER, Germany — The interfacing of the digital world of the Internet and ITC with the geographical world of location-based services, navigation devices and contextual information delivery surfaced as a trend that at CeBIT2010 earlier this month. This interfacing presents interesting implications for digital signage and kiosks, in that they will play a role as technological vehicles for this geo-convergence.

The "Connecting World" official CeBIT2010 theme indicated across halls and businesses the necessity of integration of systems, networks and applications for home living, Web society, navigation, industrial production and health. Since all ITC sectors had a significant representation, specific trends could be perceived across the industry.

From an ITC perspective, convergence is based on interoperability and standardization. In the mobile world, convergence counteracts the proliferation of platforms and standards that tend to disperse development resources. Digital signage and kiosk manufacturers (OEM hardware producers and system integrators) use flexible design to accommodate specific applications, sometimes combining multiple technologies. However, convergence can be found not only at product level but also in the environment in which the product is deployed.

The prototype kiosk by TazTag and Hyundai incorporates NFC functionality. In the background, the custom card enabling NFC reading on third party kiosks.

Our surrounding environment of places and objects is becoming progressively represented in digital form, and new display and interaction devices are needed for this purpose. Tag-based identification via RFID, NFC and QR-Code is becoming a widespread method for reading data. The kiosk developed by French TazTag and produced by Hyundai uses an NFC reader paired with a custom recording device for improved security. Computer vision offers an alternative to this approach. NICTA, an Australian research institute, presented research showing how cameras mounted on a moving car can recognize street signs by comparing recorded images with a stored picture model, at a computational cost suitable for mobile devices, for developing maps of street signs in new areas.

Mobile companies are progressively seeking the integration of the Internet with the geographical world, based on location, navigation and assisted interaction with the environment. GPS-enabled smartphones are widely seen by the industry as the vehicles for this convergence. Applications like Aura, a navigation software introduced at CeBIT2010 by Sygic and available on multiple platforms, is based on the concept of integration of personal data with the navigation-centered interaction with the geographical world. The maps are enhanced by approximate 3D building shapes, a first step in incorporating the visual landscape in navigation, and there is support for shared place-voting mechanisms.

According to Marius Preda, professor at the France-based Telecom & Management institute, the digital-geographical world interface has to be built by the community with the help of proper development tools accessible to non-experts. Their Totem project aims at supporting gaming on mobile, based on communication controlling 3D graphics. Along these lines, location-based games may be programs related to collected messages or pictures which are applied to the geographical world with the support of software tools and proper infrastructure.

The digital world is becoming less autonomous. According to the Cloud-computing concept, computing resources and services are being progressively transferred onto the Web and dematerialized from offices and homes. Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.com, in the opening keynote of the Global Conferences series, described the growth of this large-scale virtualization approach. He also indicated that the growing Cloud needs to reflect the subdivisions of the geographical world, such as country-specific laws and regulations.

The current approach to large-scale systems is confronted with a similar issue. IBM's Vice President of Marketing and Communication, Jon Iwata, reported in another keynote speech the new scenario of ubiquitous and fast-increasing presence of interconnected sensing and control devices supporting human activity and requiring a complex management. "Smarter Planet" also means that ITC is deeply intertwined with the geographical world, a trend that pairs with Green-IT in defining new market approaches. An example is the smaller-scale "smarter cities" project, TagMyLagoon. Developed by IBM, France-based Neotilus and the City of Venice, the projects allows pedestrian traffic in peripheral areas of the city to be directed by QR-Code tags read by tourists with mobile phones.

While mobile is becoming the main platform of this convergence, limitations such as screen size and security concerns may require a managed infrastructure of support deployed in fixed locations. This is where digital signage and kiosk applications may play an important role. Factors like their defined geographical location, their hardware and display capabilities, their approach to contextualized and timed presentation of information, and the incorporation in kiosks of new technologies for object identification, all make them suitable vehicles for the digital-geographic convergence. The challenge seems not so much on the technical side but on developing concepts specifically reflecting the complexity of the geographical world and of our interactions with it.

Ruocco is a freelance writer based in Milan, Italy.