3pointD.com

Microsoft will push the development of geospatial and mapping applications with “unrestricted funding” totaling $1.1 million that has been offered to 21 winners chosen from among more than 140 university teams that responded to a recent Microsoft Research request for proposals. The awards are made for one year.

What I like about this program is that it’s focused squarely on how mapping and geospatial functions can be used to improve our physical lives. According to a press release, “The university research teams aim to study and map the physical world in real time, to push the technological boundaries of local search, and to understand the potential societal impact of these kinds of geographic technologies. New solutions ultimately resulting from the research are expected to yield rich and diverse benefits, such as helping tourists find affordable restaurants with the shortest lines, or helping scientists understand changes in the ecology of biological systems under the threat of climate change.” [Emphasis added.]

Projects already in the works include layering current environmental conditions into a mirror world like Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, or allowing climatologists and other scientists to examine data over the long term to track pollution and climate changes. Other projects take in what we at 3pointD would call augmented reality, combining data from tiny real-world sensors, the Internet and “a variety of other sources” with map information and geographic imagery. There’s also a researcher who’s contemplating recreating his movements in a mirror world so that friends and family can keep up with him remotely. Now that’s my kind of mapping.

I really need to spend more time with Microsoft’s SensorMap, as well, which already layers live information into Web-based maps, but which will apparently be able to take in data from all kinds of sensors, including ones that generate what is effectively lifelogging data. Some award recipients are thinking of some really cool applications for this kind of technology, too: “What if I could create an avatar of myself that recreates in a virtual world what I’m doing in the physical world, so that my family could access it when I’m away on a business trip and keep up with what I’m doing?” asks Tarek Abdelzaher, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “This scenario is possible through mobile sensors and SensorMap technology.”

Can’t wait.