Growth Update
https://www.wired.com/2017/05/hundreds-apps-can-listen-beacons-cant-hear/
This report sees 60 million iBeacon/BLE devices in use in 5 years. That is rapid growth.
Note: iBeacons can only transmit. The iBeacon device has no communication reception capabilities. It is a one way transmit device only. After transmission of whatever an iBeacon device transmits, it is entirely up to a receiving App on a receiving device to do something and/or communicate something via standard Wifi, cell or Bluetooth communication.
In a prior post I considered the granularity of Big Data. While it was the start of a closer look at granularity, the thoughts were not extended but suspended for awhile.
The thought was that granularity at one end and Big Data at the other is a two part thing.
One part is the granularity of "internet of things" devices getting more granular all the time. iBeacons and BLE being examples. As they get smaller, their range gets smaller but their range is not isolated. It is more like the last inch in the extension of internet wireless communications. The last inch being a device that has a geo positioning/person identification down to the last inch. Not only that, if the device has personal link to the owner/holder in some inseparable biometric fashion that cannot, or cannot easily be detached then the person has the identity of the device and vice versa. More or less like home detention devices placed on offenders.
iBeacons reception with an chosen app is voluntary of course. However, if the requirement for admission or use or privilege of lower price shopper ID is having a specialized
vendor App of some sort then of course exclusion is a mighty motivator to have the App.
Another item I read this morning describes an innovation to be tested at a European airport that will automatically text a passenger to get out their passport when in proximity to a point where it will be required. Obviously some detection of proximity if an iBeacon type device is involved for detection. Then an app must be triggered to alert the user about something.
I like to speculate. Especially when it is so simple and easy as reading the writing on the wall. Like I have some kind of mystical crystal ball revealing the obscure and unknown. A testament perhaps to my keen intellect and foresight. Not at all really when it is so easy to see. The wonder is why so few see it. Their problem or mine.
Tracking people in a geo confined space through a iBeacon or similar BLE device with a tracing app on the receiving device transmitting location and other contextual information is obviously going to be an explosive growth thing.
That is the segue to the other part of granularity and Big Data. The first part being the internet of device things. The second part uses the analogy of the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW). The Internet being the network of connected computers devices and communications lines, (wired/unwired in one big connection scheme). The WWW being all the interlinked http information sites of information and their sub category interlinked information structures. The WWW that was created by Tim Berners-Lee.
Don't get the internet confused with the WWW. We casually call all the information world the resides on the computer network the "Internet" It is not the internet, it is the WWW. When we do an "Internet Search" we are searching the WWW that exists on an Internet structure.
The Internet and the WWW are inter twined like our minds and our bodies.
Information about things is becoming more granular in the WWW. One of the more or most important things in the WWW relating to information is people or more specifically a unique singular instance of the plural people: A person. A person that is becoming identified in time and space with growing specificity as devices become more granular to the level of a mandatory one to one relationship with the owner/operator/user.
In the world of Object Oriented Information Engineering the general building block of the most complex structures is the one to one unique and exclusive mandatory relationship that identifies the most fundamental unit entity on which the structure is organized.
A uniquely identifiable human being, of which there is no other, identified by some conceptual identification naming scheme is the building block of a social information structure. Maybe a number, maybe a hash. Simple names don't suffice any more in an information world where ambiguity is not allowed and exactness in the identification of all things in the information system as well as their known methods to do something and messages they respond to is mandatory.
Biometric iWatches triggered to transmitting by iBeacons proximity and communicating directly other devices within proximity , Wifi or cellular or standard Bluetooth reporting time/space/and related attribute information about a uniquely identified person in real time is a fantasy proposition on which to base science fiction flights of imagination.
Science fiction more often than not becomes science fact!
Interesting to speculate how all this science fiction might be applied in an example. One where it is really important to track many people in a specific geographical area for a period of time measured in hours and minutes. Like a store or an airport or any venue where an admission price is paid to enter the area and roam at will, or by strict control around it.
SparkCompass illustrates the use of iBeacons and their platform at this link.
This appears to be the model: iBeacon broadcast proximity location to your device pinpointing where you are at and your device gives you some valuable contextual information in return. A transactional model. Spark Compass used the San Diego Convention Center as an example. Could have been a major airport.
The model would not work as well if it was: Tell me who you are (vendor provided App) and where you are at (geo info transmitted to your receiving device by BLE iBeacon type device) and then transmitted via Wifi, Cell or Bluetooth to a tracking center and I will give you nothing in return except security. The trackee may or may not be aware of tracking. May or may not have authorized it by opt in, avoided it by opt out. If you do not have your cell phone turned on for the tracking center to learn who you are and where you are at someone, a security official will make you turn it on or forfeit your cell phone. That is the new TSA rule in foreign airports. Coming to the USA under the guise of "enhanced customer experience"?
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