Personal Navigation: NAVI Programme 2000-2002

The planning project for the Personal Navigation (NAVI) programme proposes a three-year national programme. About one hundred experts from enterprises, the administration, research institutes and universities took part in the planning project under the leadership of VTT Information Technology. The development of technologies and markets, the usability of devices and services, and legal and ethical issues were examined in the planning project to serve as the background and starting point for the programme. This report summarises the information gathered in the planning project and seeks to present an intelligible analysis of the topic. Chapter one examines the creation of the mobile multimedia market, the structure of personal navigation's value chain, different scenarios and concepts concerning the nature of the market and competition, and co-operation issues. Location-based services are expected to become a significant part of the mobile multimedia market globally. There will be intense competition between mobile portals, and user groups' own services will play a key role in shaping the usage culture. Chapter two deals with the key functions and service contents of personal navigation. Personal navigation involves positioning the user and using information on positioned sites, phenomena and services to help the user choose the route and mode of transport necessary to reach a particular destination in both indoor and outdoor environments. Navigation services should answer the user's questions about the location of the user him/herself, some other person or selected site, and should provide guidance by different routes and modes of transport. It is generally assumed that the personal communicator, i.e. the terminal device, will be a mobile phone or some other small portable device capable of accessing data network services. Chapter three describes positioning methods based primarily on terrestrial radio or satellite positioning systems. Requirements set for the accuracy of positioning will become greater as the positioning technology is developed. The accuracy of consumer devices has improved from a few hundred metres to a few tens of metres over the past twenty years, and the aim is to achieve an accuracy of a few metres in the near future. The accuracy requirement of consumer devices in particular will be limited by factors such as the costs of devices and infrastructure as well as the size and power consumption of the positioning device. Current methods are not particularly suitable for indoor positioning. Chapter four outlines the service architecture that would not only be clear and simple from the perspective of device and service compatibility, but also capable of offering a sufficiently diverse range of services. The information system architecture in personal navigation will be a distributed one. The format of the information to be communicated will be a key criterion for the compatibility of applications. Application interfaces should be based on international standards in widespread use, and should be open so that they support free competition in service supply. Internet and WAP standards represent a key starting point. The most important standardisation co-operation bodies as far as personal navigation is concerned are presented at the end of the chapter. Chapter five examines user needs and motives and the shaping of usage culture. Identification of user groups and their needs is the starting point for user-centred product development when defining product concepts and functions. Technology offers the tools necessary for the development of new devices and services, but the essential thing is how the different usage cultures will adopt new products and how demand and supply will meet one another. User-centred product development will ensure that the products meet the needs and likings of users. Finally, the methods of user-centred product development are described. Chapter six deals with many legal questions concerning the positioning of people and the exploitation of location data. Topics such as data protection, consumer protection, copyrights to service contents and other rights are examined. Key questions are: When can location data be used? What rights apply to service contents and to whom do these rights belong? What restrictions should be placed on the monitoring of people's movements and what kind of new legislation would the provision of location services require? The final chapter considers ethical questions posed by the development of personal navigation and the technology that it requires. Innovations and their increasingly widespread use are raising questions and fears among users. For example, on whose terms is the technology being developed and what will its consequences be? An ethical audit and the criteria developed for it will seek to reveal the perspectives of different stakeholder groups and to engage them in the innovation process. Human conceptions and world views are influencing background factors, and a set of values should be defined as a starting point for interaction. On-going projects concerning the topic of personal navigation as well as the themes of the EU's Fifth Framework Programme's IST programme are presented in the report's appendices.