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Friday, October 02, 2009

Key feature: Email with GPS

I have two GPS options. One is a stand-alone device that I keep in my car, the other is built into my Android phone. The stand-alone is better, and the only safe option when driving solo, but the phone option is nice in that it is always with me. I am not good with directions, so I originally thought I would rely on the GPS for finding any new destination. But I have found that they are just a bit tedious Both GPS options share that trait, even though the data-input strategy for each is quite different. So for very quick, simple new destinations, I still often it more expedient just to print the map, and navigate conventionally. But that is definitely a disappointment, especially when complications ensue, where a GPS would help--missed turns, detours, etc. So what I would like is an easy way to feed my destinaton to the GPS, one that doesn't involve typing on a tedious little device. I would like to email my destination to the GPS. Similar to how I can email a posting to my weblog. The difference is that a weblog is based on free-text, whereas the email-to-GPS would require a standardized schema, and encoding via XML. Along the lines of the "semantic web". Of course I don't actually want to type in an XML schema. So it would be nice if directions would include a "send to GPS option", which would generate the email with encoded address. And for free-text submissions, there could be simple, comma-based standards that would infer the schema.

01/15/22: That didn't age well.

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