Building a Smarter Planet. A Smarter Planet Blog.

Over the past century but accelerating over the past couple of decades, we have seen the emergence of a kind of global data field. The planet itself - natural systems, human systems, physical objects - have always generated an enormous amount of data, but we didnt used to be able to hear it, to see it, to capture it. Now we can because all of this stuff is now instrumented. And its all interconnected, so now we can actually have access to it. So, in effect, the planet has grown a central nervous system.

Look at that complex set of relationships among all of these complex systems. If we can actually begin to see the patterns in the data, then we have a much better chance of getting our arms around this. Thats where societies become more efficient, thats where more innovation is sparked.

When we talk about a smarter planet, you can say that it has two dimensions. One is to be more efficient, be less destructive, to connect different aspects of life which do affect each other in more conscience and deliberate and intelligent ways. But the other is also to generate fundamentally new insights, new activity, new forms of social relations. So you could look at the planet as an information, creation and transmission system, and the universe was hearing its information but we werent. But increasingly now we can, early days, baby steps days, but we can actually begin to hear the planet talking to us.

The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) and IBM today unveiled smart mobile applications designed to transform how fans access information and keep up with the action at Wimbledon 2009.  

The Seer Android Beta is an innovative application being trialled at Wimbledon 2009, that takes a live video feed from the handset’s camera, and superimposes content and data associated with various points of interest into that video stream.

From tennis to food courts, points of interest throughout the Wimbledon grounds have been plotted using GPS.  By making use of the T-Mobile G1’s digital compass and precise GPS coordinates, the application offers a ‘heads up display’ to show the user what they are looking at. It augments this with other live data from the scoring systems and IBM scouts reporting from around the grounds, to give the user a comprehensive and dynamic insight into their surroundings. For instance, pointing the camera lens towards a court will not only identify the court number, but also display details about the current and subsequent matches.

Seer Android Beta users can also use the phones’ Map view, which pinpoints their location on a detailed map of the grounds, and can be used as a way finder. The Timeline view is an aggregation of news feeds and updates from IBM scouts, and allows users to see in real-time what is happening around the site.  And a handy ‘Radar’ function indicates the user’s current position and nearby points of interest within range.

The Seer Aggregator is a Twitter application that aggregates all Wimbledon based content into one channel.  It’s a straightforward but intuitive way for fans to make sense of all the action taking place during the two weeks of the tournament.  With its easy-to-use filtering menu system, fans onsite at Wimbledon and around the world can tune into the information that interests them the most.

IBM scouts will be onsite throughout the duration of the tournament providing firsthand accounts and real-time updates regarding queues, seat availability, taxis, general travel information, live match updates and order of play.

The Twitter Aggregator will work with most Java-enabled mobile handsets and is available for download from www.wimbledon.org/ibm from 22 June, 2009.  These tweets will also be available to all Twitter users at www.twitter.com/IBMScout.