2009

Okay, so it has been 1 year since I posted...I stink at this.  I'm still at Skyhook in Boston and loving it (although if we could shrink winter, I'd be happier!).

A lot has happened in that one year (other than the global economic disaster, the historic presidential election, etc.), some location highlights:

• Wifi positioning has become an accepted (expected?) method for enhancing location determination
• Millions of devices are running our software
• We grew to over 100M APs and over 400K Cells in our system
• Major GPS vendors have licensed our tech to include XPS with their chips

2009 will:

• see location becoming a first-class citizen at the OS/driver level
  
• see a growth in privacy concerns as the number and types of apps grow
  
• see a huge growth in web based location integration
• see location based context become a focus
• push the capabilities of indoor location to an unprecedented level

I'll be continuing to work with the team to push on these and other fun technology fronts (scalability being another interesting one) as well as working on some more futuristic researchy items related to the above.

On the personal front, probably best to track me on facebook if interested in that sort of thing.

I promise to push myself to keep this one active on the resarchy side of things.

Kipp

Apple and Skyhook

My goodness but it's been a long time since i made it out here. I'll blame it on the work...and with good reason.

We've been pretty much heads down for the last several months preparing for what came out last week. As most of you who read this already know (since I've been crowing about it for the last week) --

Apple announced the inclusion of Skyhook's Wireless Positioning Service in the upgrade of the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Steve Jobs announced this during his keynote at Macworld in San Francisco last week.

USA Today
Video podcast
Boston Globe
Links to pr and keynote
Some photos


among others....the best is to see Steve on stage explaining it -- "Isn't that cool? ... That's really cool!"

So, we're happy to be included in the iPhone, a pretty fantastic phone/computing device. It really does change the way you think about the device -- or at least it has for me. Phone seems like such a limiting term...

Well, that's the big news. A number of other things have been going on that are worth mentioning:

- patent 7,305,245 "Location-based services that choose location algorithms based on number of detected access points within range of user device " was issued and includes me as an inventor
- we continue to hire some excellent people into the team (and we're looking for more!)
- the prospects look good for adding WPS into other devices

Personally, I'd like to be able to spend some time focusing on continuing to improve the system for indoor use. There is a lot of research that has been done on indoor positioning systems that we can leverage in considering a large scale indoor positioning system. It has some great challenges that make it hard, but extremely interesting. Not to say that outdoor positioning doesn't also have some great problems as well, but the game changes a bit when you move indoor.

Not a bad start to the year!

Kipp

Moving and Austria

So we have a new house in Medfield! All of our PODS showed up on Saturday and it looks like most of our stuff made it in it's requisite number of parts, but we'll see when it's all unloaded.

Meanwhile, I took off Saturday to Munich. Arrived on Sunday and had a road trip to Innsbruck, Austria. Lovely town and beautiful weather. I'll try to get some photos online today if possible.

Attending the UbiComp conference for the next couple of days. I've found at least one person that I know from GT (Gregory Abowd) and likely will find a couple others along the way.

Opening keynote is coming up Antonio Calvosa from Ferrari...should go fast :-)

Home

Nearly there, we close on the house in mere hours (http://www.flickr.com/photos/22868073@N00/sets/72157601442689857/). Looking forward to getting out of our little tiny one room hotel suite!

We should be able to take possession immediately and start evacuating from the hotel. The PODS are scheduled to show up tomorrow, so I'm hoping to be able to get some of the basics (mattresses) out before I fly off to Europe. Yup, me being me, I fly off to Munich tomorrow afternoon to leave Pam to get us moved in. Aren't I sweet?!?

I'll be attending UbiComp which is held in Innsbruck, and then off to Loca2007 which is in Oberpfaffenhofen, near Munich. Back in the States Saturday evening.

Hopefully once back, I'll be able to find all of my things (like the card reader for my camera) and get back into the swing of things.

Work is going great, the kids are liking their school, but I think it'll get even better once we are in our new place and can call it home!

Kipp

Hello Boston!

Well, the summer has wrought quite the change. Whist pursuing my degree at Georgia Tech, I've been working with a company in Boston, Skyhook Wireless as I've used a lot of their data for my research in wireless positioning and mobile location services.

Well, they closed another round of funding in July and subsequently invited me to join the team. After due consideration, I accepted and the family has thus been thrust into the midst of a move to the Boston area. We're excited by the opportunity, but still trying to get our northeastern legs under us.

The company is located in downtown Boston and we've located a house in Medfield...a 'burb that puts me about 35 minutes of train ride away. The house is rather old -- built in 1751! But it's in good shape and came with 1.5 acres of land, so we're stoked.

The girls started school today and so far so good!

I'll post more info and pictures soon.

Kipp

Visited countries

I was following a trail though flickr and found this little nugget



create your own visited country map

It's sad...I've only visited 11 countries (4%)...wow I have a lot to do!

At least I've done a bit more in the States, but still only 2/3 of the way there:




Kipp

Network Effect

So, Metcalfe's Network Effect is kinda cool. I just experienced it recently as fellow from the Scottish Borders. John Connell works for Cisco as their Education Business Development Manager for the Emerging Markets.

John recently spent a brief time in Liberia, hence the connection. Check out blog and his photos. I definitely agree with his thoughts on open source and the role it will play in helping build a platform for education, especially in developing countries. He discusses the OLTP approach, but notes some of the shortcomings especially in countries like Liberia that have effectively zero connectivity outside of the capitol city.

The other critical issue (and one that is even more basic) is access to power. As Russell Southwood of Balancing Act discusses in a recent article on Power, the lack of power makes nearly everything else harder and more expensive. While we (in the US anyway) complain about the cost of gas, we have the luxury of worrying about the cost -- very few people in Liberia have a chance to even experience electric power (other than that produced by the various diesel generators --which mostly produce a lovely odor for people to experience).

Another recent connection thanks to the connected world was an introduction to a member of the parliament in Uganda. I'm hoping to get another perspective on ICT policy development from Edward Baliddawa thanks to an introduction from my friend, Josh Jackson at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.

I hope to extend these connections in the near future!

Kipp