Los Angeles QS MeetupLocation Tracking

Oct 15th, 2011

Eric BlueBlog: http://eric-blue.comTwitter: @ericblue

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Quantified Self – Location Tracking

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How I started tracking location Early projects

◦ Creating a personal travel journal My Personal Memex

GPS tracking◦ “Where’s Eric?”◦ Google Latitude◦ DIY – Build my own Latitude

Personal GPS recorder tracking 1 million+ coordinates

Detailed reporting on where I’ve been for over 1 year

Overview

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1st GPS device from 2002 – eTrex Vista◦ Started out as a hobby: tracking hikes, biking + road

trips In 2008 I created a personal travel journal

◦ Consolidated all pictures + videos from the past 10 years

◦ Pieced together memories and created a record of all trips I’ve been on

◦ Interests in both life logging and tracking where I’ve been

In 2010 started an experiment with GPS◦ Carrying a small GPS device virtually 24/7◦ Curiosity in analyzing patterns and building memories

How I Started Tracking Location

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My Personal Travel Journal - Inspiration

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A journal of sorts, listing where I’ve been from 1990s to today◦ Text of who, what, when, where?◦ Pictures + Videos

Built on Mediawiki (used by Wikipedia) with semantic capabilities◦ Ask it where you’ve been & it will answer!

Browse by timeline, location, person

My Personal Travel Journal [1]

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My Personal Travel Journal [2]

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My Personal Travel Journal [3]

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My Personal Travel Journal [4]

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Great for centralizing information in one place◦ Greatly improves recall and enhances memory◦ Details about where you’ve been within seconds

Lots of work◦ Manual recall needed to fill in details about the trip

and locations◦ Need something automated to tell you where

you’ve been Inspired by Gordon Bell’s work (MyLifeBits) and his

book Total Recall Leverage advances in GPS tech + cell phones to make

location tracking ambient

My Personal Travel Journal -Discovery

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Tracking my location with my cell phone◦ Inspired by a website I saw in 2006 – Where’s

Tim? Real-time GPS tracking I wanted to do this for years; luckily the iPhone made

it possible Tried many early iPhone apps to get GPS

coordinates and post to a website◦ In 2010 I used InstaMapper for a short while◦ Wrote an app to get lat/long, lookup address with

GeoNames, and display on a Google Map

GPS Tracking – “Where’s Eric?” [1]

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GPS Tracking – “Where’s Eric?” [2]

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Lessons Learned?◦ Nifty prototype, but not really practical for

detailed tracking◦ Technology isn’t there yet

Still had an original iPhone 3G – no background apps Battery drain was pretty significant

◦ Needs some “smarts” about places, not just viewing coordinates

◦ Mainly interested in tracking location for my own analysis

GPS Tracking – “Where’s Eric?” [3]

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Excited to try Google Latitude, overall very good features

Let’s you share location with others if desired

Has a History feature◦ Download your track log for import into Google

Earth (KML)◦ Has reports on places you’ve visited◦ Search track log by date

GPS Tracking – Google Latitude [1]

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GPS Tracking – Google Latitude [2]

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Lessons Learned?◦ Runs in the background and doesn’t impact

battery too much◦ Accuracy is an issue

Uses cell tower data for triangulation at times; can show me miles from where I really am

Looking for a coordinates every few seconds not minutes

◦ Limit reliance on 3rd party sites for sharing location What about privacy?

GPS Tracking – Google Latitude [3]

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GPS Tracking

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DIY? I’ll build my own version of Google Latitude!◦ Use a small, high-quality GPS that can record

lat/long every second – Qstarz BT-Q1000XT GPS◦ Carry with me at all times (fits in my pocket)◦ Logged over 1 million coordinates since Sept. 2010◦ Integrates with Google Maps, Geocoding, and Places◦ Part of my personal project to track other quantified

gadgets for fitness, sleep, health, etc. TRAQS.me (Tools for Reporting & Analysis of the

Quantified Self) – http://traqs.me

GPS Tracking – Do It Yourself! [1]

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Qstarz – small + long battery life Upload GPX data once a month Wrote software to process and

◦ Determine Top Places I visit Businesses, Restaurants, etc. Places I’ve travelled – city/state Counter to track # visits, last visit date

◦ Support proximity searching◦ View track log by date, location, top visits, etc.

GPS Tracking – Do it Yourself! [2]

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DIY – Top Places Report

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DIY – Top Places Map View

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DIY – Proximity Search

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DIY – Track Log By Date

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Experiments for the Future?◦ Integrate new automated GPS tracking with my

original Personal Travel Journal Use technology to help improve recall & build a

strong memory◦ Lookup my location history on the go

Find out “When was I here?” from my iPhone◦ Incorporate heatmaps

Additional information◦ Links to this presentation and other articles &

projects at the Quantified Self Los Angeles Wiki http://quantifiedselfla.wikispaces.com/

Location Tracking - Conclusion