What About the Inside?

About a year ago in 2008, I had the privilege to speak in front of the Where 2.0 2008 audience.  The topic was titled, “What About the Inside?” (Online video link here.)  I’m bringing this up again since the question is still valid — in some sense much more valid now than before.  What was the context?  It was a question meant not only for the Where 2.0 audience, but also meant for the GIS, mapping, GPS, 3D/2D imaging, government/civic, architectural and urban planning, and any community of people who were doing any work that gathers information and interacts with interior places and spaces we live.

The premise was that we have an unnatural bias towards mapping the outside spaces more so than the inside.  Perhaps it has some historical significance, where outside spaces were the final frontier.  Well, that’s no longer true, since much of the earth’s outdoors has been mapped, explored, marked.  GPS, satellite and aerial imaging, smart software algorithms (e.g. image registration), and the Moore’s Law definitely changed the landscape of how we can gather information for the outside.  Now we even have ground-level imagery from Google, EveryScape, etc., and we can zoom around places virtually.

But what about the INSIDE spaces?  I surely don’t want to stop at just the entrance to a place I want to visit.  I want to go INSIDE!  Perhaps the right question is: How can I experience of the inside spaces of every interior space I’d like to visit?  Yeah, it’s a big question.  And in this context, by “I,” I mean for every single person who uses the internet.  There are definitely issues such as privacy, no GPS, no aerial photos, multiple floors/levels, etc. that question existing technologies and solutions, since they don’t seem to “map” that well for the interiors.

Please check out my Where 2.0 2008 presentation video and I would love to hear your thoughts.  And below is the clip of an EveryScape eye-candy commercial.