Re: Does Org-mode need to be position aware?

From: "Thomas S. Dye" <tsd@tsdye.com>
To: Sebastian Rose <sebastian_rose@gmx.de>
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Does Org-mode need to be position aware?
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2010 09:56:05 -1000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <12D25661-211F-4EF6-8BA9-8A1B5F4E39A3@tsdye.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87iq57co58.fsf@gmx.de>

I'll second the "great idea!"

This is something that my archaeological fieldworkers would love to  
have.  A list of TODO items for various archaeological sites (with  
coordinate locations) could be prioritized by Org-mode using proximity  
to current position.  They'd love the idea they are saving steps.

All the best,
Tom

On Jun 25, 2010, at 2:06 AM, Sebastian Rose wrote:

> Hi Thorsten,
>
>
> that's a great idea!
>
>
> Torsten Wagner <torsten.wagner@gmail.com> writes:
>> Dear All,
>>
>> I recently bought a Android-based phone and was pleased to see the
>> mobileorg version for Android. As you all may know people tend away  
>> from
>> static computer places and we have mobileorg and some of us even run
>> emacs and org-mode natively on smartphones and other gadgets. More  
>> and
>> more of this devices come with a build-in GPS or at least they get  
>> can
>> get the current location by tracking the mobile phone towers.
>>
>> Playing around with Android for a few days, I saw many applications
>> which make use of the fact that the location is known to them. E.g.  
>> they
>> show restaurants, shops, or doctors praxis close to you.
>>
>> I start wondering whether org-mode should get aware of my location  
>> and
>> whether people might be interested to add a location tag to org- 
>> mode tasks.
>>
>> In a similar way as we add status, priorities, dates, tags, etc. It
>> might be interesting to add a location. A special agenda search could
>> list only those entries associated with my current location (or  
>> within a
>> given circle).
>>
>> Since GPS coordinates are somehow ugly and human unreadable, I  
>> thought
>> it should be possible to mask them similar to links. E.g., like
>> [[gps://35.71083783530009,139.8175048828125][Somewhere in Japan  
>> +3km]].
>>
>> Obviously, the first part has to be generated by read out the GPS
>> location, the second part is a human readable description and a given
>> radius. Closing this "link" would end up in "Somewhere in Japan  
>> +3km".
>>
>> A "C-a l" could compile an agenda list only showing those entries  
>> which
>> intersect with my current location.
>
> `C-a' is bound to `beginning-of-line'.
>
> `C-c a l' is still free.
>
>
> But wouldn't a property more suitable for the agenda?
>
> * TODO Something in Japan
>  :PROPERTIES:
>  :COORDS: gps://35.71083783530009,139.8175048828125
>  :END:
>
>
> The `+3km' could be a default setting (and could be supplied as a
> filter, just like tags).
>
>
> (Somehow I see the `org address book' discussion coming up again.   
> Emacs
> needs an address book we all use.  Something that's delivered with
> Emacs.)
>
>
>
> Links could point to map.google.com.  I'd like to use those links to
> store tracks in Org-files as well.  HTML-Export could support OSM or
> Google-Maps to show the tracks.  We also could produce SVGs or PNGs  
> from
> the data.
>
>
>> Obviously, it requires to read in GPS data, which might be tricky  
>> to do
>> for all those different devices. Furthermore, it might need emacs- 
>> lisp
>> code as well as some external program to read-out the position of the
>> GPS module.
>
>
> On Linux, BSD and MAC OS X there is `gpsd'.  I don't know how useful
> it is --- I don't own a GPS yet.
>
> http://gpsd.berlios.de/ states:
>
>   gpsd is a service daemon that monitors one or more GPSes or AIS
>   receivers attached to a host computer through serial or USB ports,
>   making all data on the location/course/velocity of the sensors
>   available to be queried on TCP port 2947 of the host computer. With
>   gpsd, multiple location-aware client applications (such as
>   navigational and wardriving software) can share access to receivers
>   without contention or loss of data. Also, gpsd responds to queries
>   with a format that is substantially easier to parse than the NMEA
>   0183 emitted by most GPSes.
>
> Is there something like it for other systems? Windows?
> I think Cell phone systems should have something ...
>
>
>
>
>> But I guess the emacs-lisp gurus here might know this much
>> better then I do. Another issue comes to my mind for mobileorg  
>> users. As
>> far as I know, mobileorg only fetches agenda views from a server but
>> does not generate them. However, this would be necessary to create  
>> this
>> kind of location aware agendas.
>>
>> Would be nice to hear other opinions. Makes this sens? Should it be  
>> part
>> of mobileorg, or rather a independent package?
>
>
> I'd make it an independent package.  Some laptops come with a built in
> GPS these days.  And your desktop might know his GEO location as well.
>
> We might have a variable `gps-home-coords' which is nice to have on  
> cell
> phones as well (would be great to have several "homes" for some  
> people -
> e.g. commuters).
>
>
> Unfortunately I don't own a GPS yet.  But I'm very interested in this
> one and surely will contribute.
>
>
>
>
> Best wishes
>
>   Sebastian
>
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