6 ms·

The Physical Web

250 points by gelliott 12y ago

sp332 12y ago
Obligatory http://xkcd.com/1367/ http://xkcd.com/1367/ I'm not saying we can't do better than web apps, but even web apps are better at this than native apps.
- reacweb 12y ago
  Just put QR codes everywhere.
  - timinman 12y ago
    http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/ http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/
    - Paul_Dessert 12y ago
      ^^^ LOL. I hit the back button thinking "WTF?"
    - patkai 12y ago
      It is funny, but I would argue that the reason people don't use QR codes is that they haven't yet gotten enough value out of them. When there will be an incentive to scan those codes suddenly everyone will be using them.
doctorfoo 12y ago
I kinda hoped the devices would actually serve the apps themselves. I guess a URL makes more sense though. But I wonder if it will lead to physical devices that give 404s when they are obsoleted. Anyway, this seems pretty exciting.
- garethadams 12y ago
  There's no reason it couldn't mean that anyway - if a device is open to the Internet then the URL it serves via Physical Web could easily be its own. But it allows for less-smart devices too. The biggest problem I can see, as with all proximity devices, is spoofing. How do I know the item listed as "Bus Stop" is actually the bus stop, and not someone's malicious Raspberry Pi hidden in the bush next to it?
  - tetrep 12y ago
    >How do I know the item listed as "Bus Stop" is actually the bus stop, and not someone's malicious Raspberry Pi hidden in the bush next to it? The same way you know that top search results are accurate for a given word/phrase. As stated multiple times throughout the introduction[1] the solution for filtering out spam will probably have an implementation similar to internet search engines. [1]: https://github.com/google/physical-web/blob/master/documentation/introduction.md https://github.com/google/physical-web/blob/master/documenta...
    - donutz 12y ago
      How do I know the top 100 items listed as "Bus Stop" aren't someone's malicious raspberry pi hidden in the bushes, spitting out hundreds of URLs and varying the signal strength so they appear to be coming from different locations and...wait a minute. I think my phone just got DOS'ed.
      - frandroid 12y ago
        That's a lot of money to DDOS people's phones at bus stops.
      - solipsism 12y ago
        You will never stop DOSs. It's trivial (I imagine, can't think why it wouldn't be) to DOS someone's cell signal. Allowing users to see which items are "certified real" and not raspberry pis in bushes is an easy engineering problem we've solved in a number of different contexts.
      - 12y ago
- meemoo 12y ago
  Jon Nordby demoed this idea with http://flowhub.io/ http://flowhub.io/ a couple of weeks ago: http://youtu.be/wCdKukf-dHI http://youtu.be/wCdKukf-dHI 1. Tap tablet to Raspberry Pi with NFC tag 2. Pi serves Flowhub IDE (noflo-ui) with the currently-running graph, ready for editing This demo drops you directly into the source, but could easily have an interface layer first. It's just a link.
paulojreis 12y ago
> "The number of smart devices is going to explode (...)" But why? Why are you/they so sure? Why do we assume that humans will just appropriate any kind of technology thrown at them? I assume this comes from educated tech guys, who are thorough with their work, tools and respective usage. How can they be so lighthearted with the premises which relate to human usage of technology?
- tree_of_item 12y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by "appropriating technology". The number of smart devices is going to explode because we want to automate all the things, and collect lots of data. It'd be great if I could ask my stove what food I've eaten this month, how healthy it was, how expensive it was, maybe even tell it to start preparing dinner at a certain time. The way to do that is to put a computer in everything.
  - paulojreis 12y ago
    > I'm not sure what you mean by "appropriating technology". People accepting, wanting, using and integrating said technology in everyday life. > The number of smart devices is going to explode because we want to automate all the things This is precisely what I'm questioning. "We want"? How can you know that? I believe you want that, I believe that maybe people in your circles do, too. Still, that is no evidence at all to extrapolate that "we want".
    - nine_k 12y ago
      There's an easy way to check: let's see what sells. Last time I checked, mildly smart home "robots", like automatic cookers, dishwashers, washing machines, even vacuum cleaners sold rather well, and were widely adopted. The smart devices, paradoxically, liberate you from thinking about dull details: you just put some clothes into a washing machine, press a button explaining approximately what type of clothes are there, and walk away. The machine figures the rest. This is a type of liberation people seem to actually like. Also, people usually don't like uncertainty puzzling new experiences. Letting people on a stop see where the bus is does make people happier. (Myself I use a mobile web site that shows real-time position of NYC buses, and can attest to that.) If you walk into an unfamiliar store, especially abroad, it could take some time to find simplest items like a bottle of water. If there was a more-or-less unified 'online' interface for finding things in this particular store on your phone, it would make many tourists happier.
AndrewKemendo 12y ago
The way I see it, this is better implemented with AR and CV using specific items as "markers" than with a "nearby lookup" table. The thing you want may be across a highway and still be near making the listing somewhat imprecise. The range of interactions is also greater with AR, as it gives the ability to be triggered (eg. highlighted) just by looking at it with the AR camera.
resiros 12y ago
I like the idea, but the first version seems quite limited. It is more of a GPS based webapp discovery tool. You click on the button, the app sends your GPS coordinate to the main server, which returns all useful webapps in the neighborhood. I think that using NFC chips, which are extremely cheap, is very appropriate here. Use case: You point your phone to the vending machine/renting car and the respective webapp is shown automatically on your phone.
- GeneralMayhem 12y ago
  NFC is tough because you have to be within about an inch of it to get a reliable connection. For the use cases of a parking meter or vending machine it works, but for a bus stop or store it becomes yet another thing to stand in line for.
  - jsolson 12y ago
    I haven't even had good luck with the parking meters in Seattle :(
- nickdandakis 12y ago
  I thought this works by each beacon broadcasting a URL with BLE, with the app sorting the received URLs by signal strength and not how you just described it. Correct me if I'm wrong, though!
callahad 12y ago
Huh, this sounds like it could dovetail beautifully with FirefoxOS's attempt to blur the lines between "native apps" and web content. It'd probably be pretty easy to have these things show up in an "Ambient" smart collection on the homescreen, or in the universal search pane... Edit: Looks like you can get this running on an RFDuino (https://github.com/google/physical-web/blob/master/documentation/getting_started.md https://github.com/google/physical-web/blob/master/documenta...), which are currently $20 at MicroCenter, and a USB shield is $25. Still 2 in stock in the Twin Cities, if anyone else is interested! Edit 2: ...Though, it looks like FxOS doesn't currently support BLE (https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Bluetooth#Unsupported_Bluetooth_Profiles https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Bluetooth#Unsupported_Bluetooth...), so this may not be the most useful path at the moment. :)
cdnsteve 12y ago
Meh, we need AI to understand API interfaces automatically and can communicate together seamlessly, without any hard coding. That's when device to device integration gets REALLY interesting. Wait, isn't this just bluetooth + web?
- webXL 12y ago
  I think having the AI to accomplish that would be the really interesting bit. That makes a lot more technological advancements possible. And yes, this is just finding new applications for the web and expanding its value/reach.
- digikata 12y ago
  It is, but I think the really interesting part is to making the connection seamless and as direct as feasible. e.g. how do you do it on one end of the spectrum if neither the embedded device or the users device has access to the internet, but they can see one another via bluetooth and wifi? I think an app makes a lot sense to initially bridge embedded devices (that may only support simple web interfaces or even lower level network messages) to smartphone browsers (which are currently oriented to handling fairly rich web interfaces from full servers). But where it should get really interesting is if you make the app support a generic enough protocol that you don't need an app-per-device type, but the app/protocol can handle a wide range of generic embedded device interfaces without requiring a full featured / high performance web server on every embedded device. After that you could basically get the protocol supported at the browser/os level and the app disappears.
- sp332 12y ago
  The underlying tech is bluetooth + web, but the user interface for this does not currently exist.
- mcrider 12y ago
  We don't necessarily need AI, we just need APIs to be standardized so everything knows how to interface with them. This is IMO the killer app for the Semantic Web (I just wrote an article on this: https://medium.com/@mcriddy/semantic-web-design-92ef35f66c9f https://medium.com/@mcriddy/semantic-web-design-92ef35f66c9f).
tarikozket 12y ago
Oh, now iBeacons(https://developer.apple.com/ibeacon/ https://developer.apple.com/ibeacon/) will make more sense. Let's implement iBeacons to vending machines and also to other machines, then use Pushmote(https://pushmote.com https://pushmote.com) to manage interactions from cloud and import Pushmote SDK into operating systems or Chrome natively. Sounds great. :)
talles 12y ago
Reading the page, the comments here and all... I can't stop thinking Firefox OS... just... can't...
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  I really don't understand why people aren't agreeing that "native" apps are a thing of the pre-internet era.
CanSpice 12y ago
The company I work for (IoT Design Shop - http://iotdesignshop.com/ http://iotdesignshop.com/) is actually releasing beacons and software that does exactly this. We have a BLE beacon called Signul that couples with an app that allows you to do all kinds of hyper-local interactions. Right now you can support our Indiegogo campaign (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/signul-the-world-s-first-personal-beacon-system/x/4265882 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/signul-the-world-s-first-...) and get a Signul beacon. I have a prototype version and it's really quite good. If the Indiegogo campaign hits $50k (it's currently sitting at $31k) we're going to release an SDK for Signul allowing anybody to write an app that interacts with the Signul beacon for either iOS or Android devices.
edhebert 12y ago
The project's ethos is very similar to Rob Pike's 'dream setup' that he describes in his usesthis interview, http://rob.pike.usesthis.com/ http://rob.pike.usesthis.com/
dmritard96 12y ago
So basically, its QRv2 without cameras and instead nfc/ble or some other physical layer.
spullara 12y ago
Looks like yet another vector mostly for local advertising.
csuwldcat 12y ago
I have been discussing this proposal with the folks at Google, and generated an additional proposal, Geo-Origins, to address some of the issues Physical Web introduces: https://github.com/csuwildcat/geo-origins/blob/master/explainer.md https://github.com/csuwildcat/geo-origins/blob/master/explai... Geo-Origins brings the trust model of the web to the physical world, and allows for more frictionless interactions in many locations.
Animats 12y ago
Isn't this what QR codes on signs were supposed to do? You don't need an "app" just to talk to some retail thing. Many retail apps are a dodge to get inside your phone and snoop around, acquire your contacts list, and track where you are.
- wuliwong 12y ago
  I was thinking along these lines as well. I suppose the difference is that these are QR codes that "broadcast" themselves to whoever wants to listen?
- solipsism 12y ago
  Yep, this is just QR codes made better. It's similar to pet microchip implants too. The only app you need is one that knows how to listen for the signals and point you in the right direction when you choose to visit one.
  - x1798DE 12y ago
    How is this similar to pet microchip implants? If there were a way to robustly put a QR code on my pet instead of using a microchip, I would - you'd be able to identify easily that the pet is tagged, and the readout devices would be more widespread. I also don't see at all how this is better than a QR code on a physical object, other than that it's invisible - which is itself not great, since unless you allow these things to be intrusive and pop up something on your phone when you get too near to one (no thanks), there's no built-in call to action. You'd basically need a sticker on everything supporting this that says, "I support Physical Web!"... in which case you might as well have a QR code.
    - bmelton 12y ago
      Technologically, they are fairly dissimilar, but on use cases, they're more closely aligned to the layperson than their tech distinctions would indicate. Both require relative proximity -- in the case of the pet sensor, physical propinquity is a constraint imposed by the technology, while a QR code, that constraint is imposed by the camera attempting to read it. Either way, you have to be close. Both technologies act as a bridge for data. In the case of the pet sensor, it basically encodes a unique ID, which is then used to query against a database housed elsewhere, which holds the real information. In the case of the QR code, the same is basically true -- the real payload is after the redirect. Either way, the mechanics aren't too different -- get close to something, read (or scan) it, and be taken to wherever the magic really happens.
danielcgold 12y ago
So many typos in the open PRs right now.
CapitalistCartr 12y ago
" . . . a vending machine, a poster, a toy, a bus stop, a rental car, and not have to download an app first in order to use it." I can, and do, do that now. I don't need or use an app to interact with any of those things, and when I have been offered apps, they've been worse than useless. Seriously, worse than nothing, they've been annoying, harassing, clunky junk. I just want to be able to approach any of these things and pull up all of the documentation regarding it. On my phone, tablet, laptop, etc. No "advertising tracking" nonsense. How to use it or fix it. If the owner wants to turn this feature off, they should be able to, but it should be on by default. If the owner thinks its a security loophole, he is both mistaken and lacking in security. This includes stores. Why can I find a shelf stocker in Target and he can use his li'l belt computer to tell me where anything is in the store, down to the shelf, and how many they have, but I can't have access to that information before I enter the store? Big box stores were never so annoying until I got used to Amazon.
- stronglikedan 12y ago
  > I don't need or use an app to interact with any of those things, and when I have been offered apps, they've been worse than useless. A store clerk recently invited me to download their app, and when I showed her that it requested every single permission, she was still baffled as to why I would want to cancel the download. > Why can I find a shelf stocker in Target and he can use his li'l belt computer to tell me where anything is in the store, down to the shelf, and how many they have, but I can't have access to that information before I enter the store? Home Depot's mobile app will tell you exactly where an item is on the shelf, including aisle, section, and level. They even have a map so you can find items that aren't on numbered aisles. It's fantastic.
  - lttlrck 12y ago
    The Lowes app has a similar feature - it really is useful.
  - troisx 12y ago
    Home Depot is terrible at actually tracking their inventory. There app is useless when it tells you where the item is, only to find out that they actually don't have any in stock despite what their tracking system says. I order easily 20x as many items from Amazon, and never had an email saying "oops, we actually don't have any in stock".
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
gpsx 12y ago
I think this is a great interface. This is cast as a discovery system for public devices but I think it is equally well suited for remote control of private devices. The writeup indicates the beacons run in broadcast mode. I think it would be good if there were also a discovery mode where the client could ping devices and they could respond. This would be good for a few use cases, including “private” devices like things in your home. These devices could be configured to only respond to certain clients. For home devices, another feature that would be nice is if the device could use http-over-BLE to service the web request itself. The device would run a small web server and the web page on the client would be the user interface for the device. For home automation there are these complicated specifications for different device types, but HTML is the perfect interface to run any device.
fiatjaf 12y ago
Most normal people I see carrying a smartphone actually never use the browser. Never. I mean NEVER.
- stronglikedan 12y ago
  I would imagine that this holds true for social media apps, but, in my experience, the browser is still king for commerce.
- skinnybatch 12y ago
  I would disagree. I know a lot of "normal people," and most use their browser to google or search using their preferred engine or a particular website, as well as load links from emails, or visit websites on the go. Personally, I'm not sure that using a particular company or product's app really saves me any time. Half the time, the app takes forever to load or is so non-properly story-boarded, that I resort to google anyway. Maybe I'm the outlier.
- SiVal 12y ago
  I'd like to see some statistics on this. I think you're right, by the way, but I hope you're wrong, and either way, I'd like to know the real answer.
- notatoad 12y ago
  I don't see how this is relevant. The proposal is for ble to broadcast a URL. Native apps can open URLs too.
- cromwellian 12y ago
  People use the browser very regularly and don't realize it because it's an embedded webkit. A classic example is people sharing articles on social networks. Native apps are a bad experience for this kind of application because they are not ephemeral. If everything in your environment has an app associated with it, then your phone will be clogged with hundreds or thousands of apps, 99% of which you never open. You want a transaction-cost free model for envirnonmental interaction, the same as 'surfing' the web. No persistent cost for experimenting or trying something out. The whole idea of "installing" stuff has really regressed computing back to the 90s. The web introduced the idea of emphemeral applications which are cached, so that you never need to manage the memory of your device. I'd like to see mobile native apps adopt Web-style model. You can pin the cache and permanently install apps that are important to you or have giant resources (like huge games), but most of your apps should backup-and-delete themselves on the fly when coming into disuse and space is needed. I'm sick of being asked to rate apps, and sick of having to delete apps to make space. Steve Jobs once said "if you see a task manager, they blew it" Because people shouldn't have to manage the kernel resources of their phone. To that I would add, "if you see an install button, they blew it", because people should not have to manage their flash memory. I thought the nightmare of cleaning up your computing devices went out with utilities to clean Windows drives and registry in the 90s.
EGreg 12y ago
I guess one of the biggest questions here would be authentication and reputation. You want to make sure the device is what you think it is. So they will need to have cryptographically signed messages, ie MAC, and you need to obtain a certificate as well from their server on the web in order to interact with them. But once you have those, you WON'T need the internet in order to communicate. The vending machine could be in a basement and bluetooth would be enough. I'm a big proponent of re-decentralizing the internet again, and the web (and physical web) is a big part of that. There's no reason why people in an african village MUST have all their cell signals travel up to a balloon and to Facebook's servers just to communicate with each other. Mesh networking and distributed power generation will bring about a revolution.
CmonDev 12y ago
Well, as long as I don't have to use HTML and JavaScript.

250 points by gelliott 12y ago

sp332 12y ago

Obligatory http://xkcd.com/1367/ http://xkcd.com/1367/ I'm not saying we can't do better than web apps, but even web apps are better at this than native apps.

reacweb 12y ago
Just put QR codes everywhere.
- timinman 12y ago
  http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/ http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/
  - Paul_Dessert 12y ago
    ^^^ LOL. I hit the back button thinking "WTF?"
  - patkai 12y ago
    It is funny, but I would argue that the reason people don't use QR codes is that they haven't yet gotten enough value out of them. When there will be an incentive to scan those codes suddenly everyone will be using them.

doctorfoo 12y ago

I kinda hoped the devices would actually serve the apps themselves. I guess a URL makes more sense though. But I wonder if it will lead to physical devices that give 404s when they are obsoleted. Anyway, this seems pretty exciting.

garethadams 12y ago
There's no reason it couldn't mean that anyway - if a device is open to the Internet then the URL it serves via Physical Web could easily be its own. But it allows for less-smart devices too. The biggest problem I can see, as with all proximity devices, is spoofing. How do I know the item listed as "Bus Stop" is actually the bus stop, and not someone's malicious Raspberry Pi hidden in the bush next to it?
- tetrep 12y ago
  >How do I know the item listed as "Bus Stop" is actually the bus stop, and not someone's malicious Raspberry Pi hidden in the bush next to it? The same way you know that top search results are accurate for a given word/phrase. As stated multiple times throughout the introduction[1] the solution for filtering out spam will probably have an implementation similar to internet search engines. [1]: https://github.com/google/physical-web/blob/master/documentation/introduction.md https://github.com/google/physical-web/blob/master/documenta...
  - donutz 12y ago
    How do I know the top 100 items listed as "Bus Stop" aren't someone's malicious raspberry pi hidden in the bushes, spitting out hundreds of URLs and varying the signal strength so they appear to be coming from different locations and...wait a minute. I think my phone just got DOS'ed.
    - frandroid 12y ago
      That's a lot of money to DDOS people's phones at bus stops.
    - solipsism 12y ago
      You will never stop DOSs. It's trivial (I imagine, can't think why it wouldn't be) to DOS someone's cell signal. Allowing users to see which items are "certified real" and not raspberry pis in bushes is an easy engineering problem we've solved in a number of different contexts.
    - 12y ago
meemoo 12y ago
Jon Nordby demoed this idea with http://flowhub.io/ http://flowhub.io/ a couple of weeks ago: http://youtu.be/wCdKukf-dHI http://youtu.be/wCdKukf-dHI 1. Tap tablet to Raspberry Pi with NFC tag 2. Pi serves Flowhub IDE (noflo-ui) with the currently-running graph, ready for editing This demo drops you directly into the source, but could easily have an interface layer first. It's just a link.

paulojreis 12y ago

> "The number of smart devices is going to explode (...)" But why? Why are you/they so sure? Why do we assume that humans will just appropriate any kind of technology thrown at them? I assume this comes from educated tech guys, who are thorough with their work, tools and respective usage. How can they be so lighthearted with the premises which relate to human usage of technology?

tree_of_item 12y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by "appropriating technology". The number of smart devices is going to explode because we want to automate all the things, and collect lots of data. It'd be great if I could ask my stove what food I've eaten this month, how healthy it was, how expensive it was, maybe even tell it to start preparing dinner at a certain time. The way to do that is to put a computer in everything.
- paulojreis 12y ago
  > I'm not sure what you mean by "appropriating technology". People accepting, wanting, using and integrating said technology in everyday life. > The number of smart devices is going to explode because we want to automate all the things This is precisely what I'm questioning. "We want"? How can you know that? I believe you want that, I believe that maybe people in your circles do, too. Still, that is no evidence at all to extrapolate that "we want".
  - nine_k 12y ago
    There's an easy way to check: let's see what sells. Last time I checked, mildly smart home "robots", like automatic cookers, dishwashers, washing machines, even vacuum cleaners sold rather well, and were widely adopted. The smart devices, paradoxically, liberate you from thinking about dull details: you just put some clothes into a washing machine, press a button explaining approximately what type of clothes are there, and walk away. The machine figures the rest. This is a type of liberation people seem to actually like. Also, people usually don't like uncertainty puzzling new experiences. Letting people on a stop see where the bus is does make people happier. (Myself I use a mobile web site that shows real-time position of NYC buses, and can attest to that.) If you walk into an unfamiliar store, especially abroad, it could take some time to find simplest items like a bottle of water. If there was a more-or-less unified 'online' interface for finding things in this particular store on your phone, it would make many tourists happier.

AndrewKemendo 12y ago

The way I see it, this is better implemented with AR and CV using specific items as "markers" than with a "nearby lookup" table. The thing you want may be across a highway and still be near making the listing somewhat imprecise. The range of interactions is also greater with AR, as it gives the ability to be triggered (eg. highlighted) just by looking at it with the AR camera.

resiros 12y ago

I like the idea, but the first version seems quite limited. It is more of a GPS based webapp discovery tool. You click on the button, the app sends your GPS coordinate to the main server, which returns all useful webapps in the neighborhood. I think that using NFC chips, which are extremely cheap, is very appropriate here. Use case: You point your phone to the vending machine/renting car and the respective webapp is shown automatically on your phone.

GeneralMayhem 12y ago
NFC is tough because you have to be within about an inch of it to get a reliable connection. For the use cases of a parking meter or vending machine it works, but for a bus stop or store it becomes yet another thing to stand in line for.
- jsolson 12y ago
  I haven't even had good luck with the parking meters in Seattle :(
nickdandakis 12y ago
I thought this works by each beacon broadcasting a URL with BLE, with the app sorting the received URLs by signal strength and not how you just described it. Correct me if I'm wrong, though!

callahad 12y ago

Huh, this sounds like it could dovetail beautifully with FirefoxOS's attempt to blur the lines between "native apps" and web content. It'd probably be pretty easy to have these things show up in an "Ambient" smart collection on the homescreen, or in the universal search pane... Edit: Looks like you can get this running on an RFDuino (https://github.com/google/physical-web/blob/master/documentation/getting_started.md https://github.com/google/physical-web/blob/master/documenta...), which are currently $20 at MicroCenter, and a USB shield is $25. Still 2 in stock in the Twin Cities, if anyone else is interested! Edit 2: ...Though, it looks like FxOS doesn't currently support BLE (https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Bluetooth#Unsupported_Bluetooth_Profiles https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Bluetooth#Unsupported_Bluetooth...), so this may not be the most useful path at the moment. :)

cdnsteve 12y ago

Meh, we need AI to understand API interfaces automatically and can communicate together seamlessly, without any hard coding. That's when device to device integration gets REALLY interesting. Wait, isn't this just bluetooth + web?

webXL 12y ago
I think having the AI to accomplish that would be the really interesting bit. That makes a lot more technological advancements possible. And yes, this is just finding new applications for the web and expanding its value/reach.
digikata 12y ago
It is, but I think the really interesting part is to making the connection seamless and as direct as feasible. e.g. how do you do it on one end of the spectrum if neither the embedded device or the users device has access to the internet, but they can see one another via bluetooth and wifi? I think an app makes a lot sense to initially bridge embedded devices (that may only support simple web interfaces or even lower level network messages) to smartphone browsers (which are currently oriented to handling fairly rich web interfaces from full servers). But where it should get really interesting is if you make the app support a generic enough protocol that you don't need an app-per-device type, but the app/protocol can handle a wide range of generic embedded device interfaces without requiring a full featured / high performance web server on every embedded device. After that you could basically get the protocol supported at the browser/os level and the app disappears.
sp332 12y ago
The underlying tech is bluetooth + web, but the user interface for this does not currently exist.
mcrider 12y ago
We don't necessarily need AI, we just need APIs to be standardized so everything knows how to interface with them. This is IMO the killer app for the Semantic Web (I just wrote an article on this: https://medium.com/@mcriddy/semantic-web-design-92ef35f66c9f https://medium.com/@mcriddy/semantic-web-design-92ef35f66c9f).

tarikozket 12y ago

Oh, now iBeacons(https://developer.apple.com/ibeacon/ https://developer.apple.com/ibeacon/) will make more sense. Let's implement iBeacons to vending machines and also to other machines, then use Pushmote(https://pushmote.com https://pushmote.com) to manage interactions from cloud and import Pushmote SDK into operating systems or Chrome natively. Sounds great. :)

talles 12y ago

Reading the page, the comments here and all... I can't stop thinking Firefox OS... just... can't...

fiatjaf 12y ago
I really don't understand why people aren't agreeing that "native" apps are a thing of the pre-internet era.

CanSpice 12y ago

The company I work for (IoT Design Shop - http://iotdesignshop.com/ http://iotdesignshop.com/) is actually releasing beacons and software that does exactly this. We have a BLE beacon called Signul that couples with an app that allows you to do all kinds of hyper-local interactions. Right now you can support our Indiegogo campaign (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/signul-the-world-s-first-personal-beacon-system/x/4265882 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/signul-the-world-s-first-...) and get a Signul beacon. I have a prototype version and it's really quite good. If the Indiegogo campaign hits $50k (it's currently sitting at $31k) we're going to release an SDK for Signul allowing anybody to write an app that interacts with the Signul beacon for either iOS or Android devices.

edhebert 12y ago

The project's ethos is very similar to Rob Pike's 'dream setup' that he describes in his usesthis interview, http://rob.pike.usesthis.com/ http://rob.pike.usesthis.com/

dmritard96 12y ago

So basically, its QRv2 without cameras and instead nfc/ble or some other physical layer.

spullara 12y ago

Looks like yet another vector mostly for local advertising.

csuwldcat 12y ago

I have been discussing this proposal with the folks at Google, and generated an additional proposal, Geo-Origins, to address some of the issues Physical Web introduces: https://github.com/csuwildcat/geo-origins/blob/master/explainer.md https://github.com/csuwildcat/geo-origins/blob/master/explai... Geo-Origins brings the trust model of the web to the physical world, and allows for more frictionless interactions in many locations.

Animats 12y ago

Isn't this what QR codes on signs were supposed to do? You don't need an "app" just to talk to some retail thing. Many retail apps are a dodge to get inside your phone and snoop around, acquire your contacts list, and track where you are.

wuliwong 12y ago
I was thinking along these lines as well. I suppose the difference is that these are QR codes that "broadcast" themselves to whoever wants to listen?
solipsism 12y ago
Yep, this is just QR codes made better. It's similar to pet microchip implants too. The only app you need is one that knows how to listen for the signals and point you in the right direction when you choose to visit one.
- x1798DE 12y ago
  How is this similar to pet microchip implants? If there were a way to robustly put a QR code on my pet instead of using a microchip, I would - you'd be able to identify easily that the pet is tagged, and the readout devices would be more widespread. I also don't see at all how this is better than a QR code on a physical object, other than that it's invisible - which is itself not great, since unless you allow these things to be intrusive and pop up something on your phone when you get too near to one (no thanks), there's no built-in call to action. You'd basically need a sticker on everything supporting this that says, "I support Physical Web!"... in which case you might as well have a QR code.
  - bmelton 12y ago
    Technologically, they are fairly dissimilar, but on use cases, they're more closely aligned to the layperson than their tech distinctions would indicate. Both require relative proximity -- in the case of the pet sensor, physical propinquity is a constraint imposed by the technology, while a QR code, that constraint is imposed by the camera attempting to read it. Either way, you have to be close. Both technologies act as a bridge for data. In the case of the pet sensor, it basically encodes a unique ID, which is then used to query against a database housed elsewhere, which holds the real information. In the case of the QR code, the same is basically true -- the real payload is after the redirect. Either way, the mechanics aren't too different -- get close to something, read (or scan) it, and be taken to wherever the magic really happens.

danielcgold 12y ago

So many typos in the open PRs right now.

CapitalistCartr 12y ago

" . . . a vending machine, a poster, a toy, a bus stop, a rental car, and not have to download an app first in order to use it." I can, and do, do that now. I don't need or use an app to interact with any of those things, and when I have been offered apps, they've been worse than useless. Seriously, worse than nothing, they've been annoying, harassing, clunky junk. I just want to be able to approach any of these things and pull up all of the documentation regarding it. On my phone, tablet, laptop, etc. No "advertising tracking" nonsense. How to use it or fix it. If the owner wants to turn this feature off, they should be able to, but it should be on by default. If the owner thinks its a security loophole, he is both mistaken and lacking in security. This includes stores. Why can I find a shelf stocker in Target and he can use his li'l belt computer to tell me where anything is in the store, down to the shelf, and how many they have, but I can't have access to that information before I enter the store? Big box stores were never so annoying until I got used to Amazon.

stronglikedan 12y ago
> I don't need or use an app to interact with any of those things, and when I have been offered apps, they've been worse than useless. A store clerk recently invited me to download their app, and when I showed her that it requested every single permission, she was still baffled as to why I would want to cancel the download. > Why can I find a shelf stocker in Target and he can use his li'l belt computer to tell me where anything is in the store, down to the shelf, and how many they have, but I can't have access to that information before I enter the store? Home Depot's mobile app will tell you exactly where an item is on the shelf, including aisle, section, and level. They even have a map so you can find items that aren't on numbered aisles. It's fantastic.
- lttlrck 12y ago
  The Lowes app has a similar feature - it really is useful.
- troisx 12y ago
  Home Depot is terrible at actually tracking their inventory. There app is useless when it tells you where the item is, only to find out that they actually don't have any in stock despite what their tracking system says. I order easily 20x as many items from Amazon, and never had an email saying "oops, we actually don't have any in stock".

deleted 12y ago

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gpsx 12y ago

I think this is a great interface. This is cast as a discovery system for public devices but I think it is equally well suited for remote control of private devices. The writeup indicates the beacons run in broadcast mode. I think it would be good if there were also a discovery mode where the client could ping devices and they could respond. This would be good for a few use cases, including “private” devices like things in your home. These devices could be configured to only respond to certain clients. For home devices, another feature that would be nice is if the device could use http-over-BLE to service the web request itself. The device would run a small web server and the web page on the client would be the user interface for the device. For home automation there are these complicated specifications for different device types, but HTML is the perfect interface to run any device.

fiatjaf 12y ago

Most normal people I see carrying a smartphone actually never use the browser. Never. I mean NEVER.

stronglikedan 12y ago
I would imagine that this holds true for social media apps, but, in my experience, the browser is still king for commerce.
skinnybatch 12y ago
I would disagree. I know a lot of "normal people," and most use their browser to google or search using their preferred engine or a particular website, as well as load links from emails, or visit websites on the go. Personally, I'm not sure that using a particular company or product's app really saves me any time. Half the time, the app takes forever to load or is so non-properly story-boarded, that I resort to google anyway. Maybe I'm the outlier.
SiVal 12y ago
I'd like to see some statistics on this. I think you're right, by the way, but I hope you're wrong, and either way, I'd like to know the real answer.
notatoad 12y ago
I don't see how this is relevant. The proposal is for ble to broadcast a URL. Native apps can open URLs too.
cromwellian 12y ago
People use the browser very regularly and don't realize it because it's an embedded webkit. A classic example is people sharing articles on social networks. Native apps are a bad experience for this kind of application because they are not ephemeral. If everything in your environment has an app associated with it, then your phone will be clogged with hundreds or thousands of apps, 99% of which you never open. You want a transaction-cost free model for envirnonmental interaction, the same as 'surfing' the web. No persistent cost for experimenting or trying something out. The whole idea of "installing" stuff has really regressed computing back to the 90s. The web introduced the idea of emphemeral applications which are cached, so that you never need to manage the memory of your device. I'd like to see mobile native apps adopt Web-style model. You can pin the cache and permanently install apps that are important to you or have giant resources (like huge games), but most of your apps should backup-and-delete themselves on the fly when coming into disuse and space is needed. I'm sick of being asked to rate apps, and sick of having to delete apps to make space. Steve Jobs once said "if you see a task manager, they blew it" Because people shouldn't have to manage the kernel resources of their phone. To that I would add, "if you see an install button, they blew it", because people should not have to manage their flash memory. I thought the nightmare of cleaning up your computing devices went out with utilities to clean Windows drives and registry in the 90s.

EGreg 12y ago

I guess one of the biggest questions here would be authentication and reputation. You want to make sure the device is what you think it is. So they will need to have cryptographically signed messages, ie MAC, and you need to obtain a certificate as well from their server on the web in order to interact with them. But once you have those, you WON'T need the internet in order to communicate. The vending machine could be in a basement and bluetooth would be enough. I'm a big proponent of re-decentralizing the internet again, and the web (and physical web) is a big part of that. There's no reason why people in an african village MUST have all their cell signals travel up to a balloon and to Facebook's servers just to communicate with each other. Mesh networking and distributed power generation will bring about a revolution.

CmonDev 12y ago

Well, as long as I don't have to use HTML and JavaScript.