Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Technology: The Addressable World
"Like computers and the Internet, location-sensing systems have been incubated by the military, adapted by civilian industry, and are now spreading into the consumer sector. The declassification of GPS data and systems in the 1990s spurred the growth of location-based services in transportation, agriculture, and supply-chain management--and an explosion in the volume of digital geographical data.
Recently, location sensing has begun moving into new arenas, such as roadside assistance systems in cars and new mobile phone services. IPv6--and Internet protocol that makes it possible to give fixed Intenet addresses to everything from laptops to street lamps--is being implemented. And efforts are underway to create a "geoweb" that associates geographic location with Web content.
"