[-empyre-] week one | mobile apps and environmental performance

[Dale Hudson]

Thanks, Babak, for this description of Kompi — and thanks, Jeff and Wendy, for asking for it.

Babak, I’m really intrigued by the visualization as a list or as a compass rather than as a map, which some people have described as a web 3.0 hegemony. You seem to be moving further and further away from the commercially available base maps of Google in these three projects. I’m wondering whether you could tell us more about the ideas that drive this shift.

Best,
Dale

On Nov 5, 2015, at 4:21, Babak Fakhamzadeh <babak.fakhamzadeh at gmail.com> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Currently, in Kompl, the user can not set the level of obfuscation,
> though it would only require exposing a few underlying parameters to
> make this possible. An intriguing thought, though in practice that
> might just result in users looking for the edges of what's available
> (that is, all or nothing), whereas, I suspect, the 'right' level of
> obfuscation lies somewhere in 'the middle'.
> 
> The obfuscation currently works such that more and more information on
> venues is made available as the user gets closer. Or, to think of it
> differently, as the amount of information matters less and less (as
> the venue is getting closer and closer and the user can just go and
> look for himself), more information becomes available.
> For venues that are 'far' away, only the distance to the venue, the
> direction, and one or two keywords, are made available, where at least
> one of the keywords is related to the user's initial search query. As
> opposed to, say, Foursquare, it's not possible (purposefully!) to look
> for, say, 'Italian restaurants', but only for 'Mediterranean
> restaurants'. For a venue that matches that request and is too far
> away for being made available in sufficient detail (currently, between
> about 500 and 1000 meters), only the distance, the direction and, in
> this case, the type of restaurant is made available to the user. But,
> because we only return venues that have been given 'good' reviews, the
> user can be certain that all returned venues are interesting/good
> 'enough'.
> 
> On getting lost, the app (again, purposefully) does not provide a map
> (but does provide a compass, or, radar). The very idea is that the
> user, only knowing the distance and direction to a venue, will have to
> find their own way.
> So, yeah, getting lost, if with a rough goal, is very much the point
> :) And, hopefully, facilitated by the app.
> 
> (As I mentioned, if you're interested, let me know and I will add you
> (and anyone else who's interested) to our beta program.)
> --
> Babak Fakhamzadeh | babak.fakhamzadeh at gmail.com | http://BabakFakhamzadeh.com
> 
> Ask me for my PGP public key to send me encrypted email.
> 
> 
> On Wed, Nov 4, 2015 at 10:06 PM, Jeff Schmuki <jschmuki at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello Babak, We enjoyed learning about your projects. Wendy is especially
>> intrigued by your most recent app that “obfuscates location information”.
>> Can the user determine the level of clarity? Is there the possibility of
>> getting lost?
>> 
>> Best,
>> Wendy + Jeff
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