I have done several video where I talked in the past about using the power of Windows Mobile for geocasting in business focused scenarios. The opportunity to leverage the ability to capture rich data with contextual commentary combined with rich ancillary data has powerful applicability in a wide range of scenarios. Law enforcement, emergency responders, physical plant inspection, researchers, news reporting, travel industry, and much much more.
Last week while on my Charlotte visits I used my dearly departed Windows Mobile phone, a Samsung Omnia from Verizon (learn about demise here ;-), to create a geocast using the IncaX LiveMedia GPS application and talked through a scenario where I might be doing a physical plant inspection. I then combined this with a quick and dirty Photosynth of one of the Microsoft office buildings in Charlotte that I drove up to. During the geocast portion I talk about the scenario, road conditions, things that might be reported on, etc., all the while capturing information that in the event of a real business case could be played back in real time for analysis. With the addition of the Photosynth I then was able to create a rich 3-D view of the building in question that could also then be navigated and further analyzed. Finally, all this was then easily served up via my SharePoint dashboard page, an out of the box feature of SharePoint, making this a navigable record that could be further extended with textual reporting (oh say via InfoPath form services) and other data as desired.
The powerful combination of geocasting leveraging the Windows Phone platform with IncaX along with Photosynth and SharePoint delivery can be real business enabling features where rich data capture for analysis, entertainment, and so on is important. Think about the competitive advantage such a solution could bring to a cruise lines, the benefits to insurance companies assessing the damage done during a natural disaster, the evidence captured in law enforcement.
Check out the simple dashboard I have created with very little effort and think about how leveraging the Microsoft platform can enable your business. Be sure to toggle through the views (arial, road) in the geocast mashup stream (delivered via Microsoft Silverlight technology), zoom in and out, as well as the blow out underneath the video box. The click around the Photosynth itself and see how it is possible to create an immersive 3-D experience of a physical structure. All of this done using common, low cost equipment.
Technology resources cited/used in this demonstration: