衛星導航儀 室內導航前景無限

GPS satellite navigation was made for me. I used to be the world’s most lost person.

GPS衛星導航儀是爲我製造的。我曾經是世界上最容易迷路的人。

I don’t know quite which non-quality I possess that causes this, but I still painfully recall the 1994 Birmingham, Alabama, fiasco — an hour for a two-mile drive. And the two hours in 1974 I spent trying to escape a French town with no signposts.

我不是很確切地知道我缺乏哪種特質導致了這種情況，但我現在仍然痛苦地記得1994年在亞拉巴馬州伯明翰市的慘痛經歷——驅車一小時才走了兩英里。我在1974年曾花兩小時努力逃離一座沒有任何路標的法國城鎮。

So when in 1996 I trialled one of the first satnav systems, fitted by Philips to a Range Rover — ￡12,000, wheel sensors included and if you knocked a wheel on the kerb, it all had to be recalibrated — I was more excited than by any other tech advance before or since.

因此，當我在1996年試用剛剛問世的一套衛星導航系統的時候，之前或之後的其他技術進步都沒有比這更令人興奮的了。這套導航系統由飛利浦(Philips)安裝在一輛路虎攬勝(Range Rover)上，包括車輪傳感器在內價格達1.2萬英鎊，如果車輪磕上馬路牙子，那就得重新校正。

But navigation indoors, where satellites don’t work, is another question. For someone who even gets lost on the way to the bathroom, it would be the dream. I was not joking in a March column when I begged for someone to invent a way of locating my wife — or indeed any given product — in Sainsbury’s.

但衛星不起作用的室內導航是另一個問題。對一些連去衛生間也迷路的人來說，這將是一個夢想。我在今年3月的一篇專欄裏求人發明一種定位我妻子（或者任何指定產品）在Sainsbury’s超市的位置的方法，這不是開玩笑。

There have been some interesting and successful pilots for indoor location by big tech companies. But I am thrilled to report that now a tiny British company, Pointr — the archetypal Shoreditch, beanbags in the meeting room start-up — seems to have really cracked indoor direction finding.

大型科技公司一直在進行一些有趣的室內定位試驗，並取得了成功。但我很高興地告訴你們，現在英國的一家小公司Pointr似乎真的掌握了室內定位技術。Pointr是典型的肖爾迪奇區(Shoreditch)的初創公司，在會議室中有豆袋坐墊。

Unannounced, Pointr’s system, which offers indoor navigation accurate to a metre, is currently being trialled by a huge London department store (I can’t say which yet), a leading British supermarket (ditto), a big London rail station and four major airports worldwide.

Pointr沒有公佈其室內導航系統，該系統可以精確到米的距離，目前在倫敦一家大型百貨商店（我現在還不能說是哪一家）、一家英國大型超市（同上）、一座倫敦大型火車站和全球4個大機場試驗。

I had a tortuous but fascinating briefing the other day on those accursed beanbags (Dear Tech Startups, please go back to chairs) and then went to see a live Pointr installation. And it absolutely works. For me, it felt like a replay of 20 years ago and that prototype satnav moment.

有一天，我在那些該死的豆袋坐墊上參與了曲折而有趣的簡介會（親愛的科技初創企業，請回到椅子上），然後去看了Pointr的現場安裝展示。這套系統絕對管用。對我來說，它就像是20年前的一幕再現，那種原型導航系統亮相的時刻。

The Pointr demo was on the 39th floor of One Canada Square at Canary Wharf in London, the tall, fat centrepiece building, each floor of which contains 30,000 sq ft of prime getting-lost real estate.

Pointr是在倫敦金絲雀碼頭第一加拿大廣場(One Canada Square)的第39層進行展示的。第一加拿大廣場是一座高大寬闊的中心大樓，每層都有3萬平方英尺的很容易讓人迷路的空間。

There are 250 fintech start-ups in Space 39, as it’s called, along with public areas. Using Pointr, even I was able to find legendarily tricky places like the gents more or less sure-footedly.

這個名爲“Space 39”的樓層有250家金融科技初創企業，還有一些公共區域。使用Pointr導航系統，即便是我也多少能夠穩妥地找到男廁這麼隱祕的地方。

Back in Shoreditch, Pointr’s Axel Katalan told me just how big the business of locating people and assets indoors could be.

回到肖爾迪奇區，Pointr的阿克塞爾•考陶隆(Axel Katalan)告訴我，室內定位人和東西的業務有多廣闊。

“It’s for airport passengers to see where they are, where the gate is, how long it will take to get there. But also think of libraries, hospitals, warehouses, factories, retail, even casinos. Anywhere big enough to get lost. And it is also usable by the visually impaired, using audio cues.”

“機場乘客可以知道自己在哪裏，大門在哪兒，以及去那兒需要多長時間。再想想圖書館、醫院、倉庫、工廠、零售店，甚至是賭場。任何大到容易迷路的地方都有用。那些視力受損的人通過語音提示也可以用。”

Part of the business case for Pointr is that when people at stations and airports are confident about getting where they need to be, they will relax and explore the retail opportunities, which they will also be able to locate more easily.

Pointr的部分商業理由是，當在車站和機場的人們確信他們能夠到達需要去的地方的時候，他們將感到放鬆，並順便尋找購物的機會——他們也會更容易找到那些零售店。

Operators of such venues also get a trade-off in the form of detailed “heat maps” of where people (at least those carrying mobile phones with Bluetooth) cluster. These maps are apparently something of a data holy grail — traffic mapping is currently done by people with hand clickers.

此類場所的運營方也不得不權衡考慮，因爲該技術可以提供人羣（至少是那些攜帶藍牙手機的人）聚集的詳細“熱圖”。這些圖顯然是讓人求之不得的“聖盃”數據——目前流量繪圖由攜帶手動點擊器的人員完成。

The technology for Pointr is based on Bluetooth beacons, coin-sized, battery-powered discs mostly made, curiously, by Polish companies. Beacons were once touted as the future of marketing, but people weren’t keen on being marketed at; navigation may be their rebirth. It took 450 beacons to kit out the London department store, installed secretly at night over a week.

Pointr的技術基於藍牙信標，這是一種硬幣大小、由電池供電的磁盤，有意思的是它們大多由波蘭的公司製造。藍牙信標一度被吹噓爲營銷的未來，但人們卻不希望成爲營銷目標：導航可能是它們的新生。那家倫敦百貨商店花了一週時間在晚上祕密安裝了450個信標。

But don’t supermarkets like you getting lost so you’ll find more to buy? Yes, Mr Katalan says, but precious footfall data are even more important to them. The only retail venue to date that has told Pointr they prefer people being confused is the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul — home to one of the 25-strong start-up’s three overseas offices, alongside Munich and Dubai.

但超市不是希望你迷路，以便購買更多東西嗎？考陶隆表示，答案是肯定的，但寶貴的客流數據對他們來說更爲重要。迄今只有伊斯坦布爾的Grand Bazaar告訴Pointr，它們希望顧客在超市中迷路。伊斯坦布爾是這家25人初創企業的3個海外辦公室所在地之一，另兩個地方是慕尼黑和迪拜。

So is indoor nav a keeper? Mr Katalan believes it’s at the stage WiFi was 10 years ago: alien to most people, but on its way to being a tech staple.

那麼室內導航儀就是防止人迷路的嗎？考陶隆認爲，當前室內導航技術正處於WiFi在十年前所處的階段：對大多數人來說還感到陌生，但正朝着成爲主流技術的方向發展。

I have a feeling that 10 years from now, those unable to find their way around a big public space will be as annoyingly retro as people today who don’t have GPS and stop their car to ask a pedestrian — normally me — for directions.

我覺得，10年以後，那些在大型公共場所迷路的人將會和現在沒有GPS並停下車問路的人（通常就是我）一樣落伍得招人煩。