Vision
iST allows the user to interact with a mobile device in two distinctive ways:
- By using a natural pointing motion, a consumer can indicate an object and ask questions about it. No more scrolling through lists and going through multiple steps to find what is of interest.
- The map orients to the direction of user. No more wondering where north is in order to orient to a map so that you can discern what direction to turn.
History
iST is a geospatial applications company focused on Location Based Services for the pedestrian and traveler, no matter how far from home. iST’s goal is to provide, relevant, contextual information in a natural, egocentric fashion. Located in Portland, Maine, iST is a C corporation of the State of Delaware, founded in 2003.Current Systems
One can think of general location based services as attempting to answer the following questions posed by a pedestrian consumer.
- Where am I?
- How do I get to ____?
- What or who is near me?
- Where are my friends
Current LBS companies answer many of these questions. They use a longitude and latitude coordinate pair to locate the consumer on a map. They then attempt to provide him with information about what is around him and directions on how to get where ever he wants to go. The most popular LBS today are for users driving motor vehicles, not pedestrians. The answers provided generally include a map and often spoken directions.
The iPointer Vision
Along with location, the iPointer makes use of another critical piece of information, the physical orientation of the consumer, by incorporating a digital compass (accelerometer and magnetometer) into the hand set. With location and orientation, iST can answer other questions.
- What’s that?
- What’s in there?
- Who owns that?
- Is it safe in there?
- Can I have a coupon?
- What’s down that way?
- Point me in the right direction
iST can answer them accurately because of its patented technology for refining the search algorithms to decide the single most likely object that the user points towards that takes into account the inaccuracies with the GPS and Digital Compass as well as variations of user pointing.
