Next Generation of Watches – Incorporating Time and Space Xinhang Shen NAC Geographic Products Inc.

Introduction What will be the most significant change of the world in the 21 st century? It will be the use of accurate location as often as the use of accurate time because they answer the two most important questions: WHEN and WHERE.

Timekeeping technologies  Ancient time: the position of the sun  3500 BC: Sundials and Hourglasses  1300’s: Mechanical clocks  1656: Pendulum clocks (Christiaan Huygens)  1761: Pocket watches (John Harrison) The timekeeping watch has answered the question of WHEN accurately and consumer friendly no matter where you are.

Positioning technologies  3500 BC: Observing land marks  Ancient Greece, Rome & Egypt: Observing the sun and stars, wind, waves and water  1100 AD: Magnetic compasses appeared  1904: Radar invented (Christian Hulsmeyer)  1978: GPS satellites launched  1990’s: Handheld GPS receivers available to all civilians Can a handheld GPS receiver answer the question of WHERE really like a watch?

Problem in GPS Receivers Although a GPS receiver can measure the accurate location anytime anywhere in the world, the geographic coordinates to represent the locations are inefficient and far too long for people to digest, remember and communicate. Therefore, the accurate geographic coordinates have never been directly used in the daily lives of consumers like accurate time.

Geographic Coordinates  To represent a location to the accuracy of one meter, a pair of decimal longitude and latitude coordinates will have more than 17 characters: Longitude: degrees Latitude: degrees or even longer in UTM coordinates: UTM Zone: 12 Easting: meters Northing: meters

Consequences  Due to the difficulties for people to digest, geographic coordinates are nearly useless to consumers.  It becomes necessary for a GPS receiver to display a location on a map that makes the GPS receiver  a) LARGE,  b) EXPENSIVE,  c) SHORT IN BATTERY LIFE and  d) DIFFICULT TO USE.

Consequences Cont’d  Up to now, GPS receivers are used in very limited applications by very small user groups.  They can’t be compared with timekeeping watches that have made accurate time the most important part of all the human activities.

Solution As the world is entering the digital era, accurate spatial information is becoming as important as accurate time in order to benefit from the modern technologies. To solve the problem of geographic coordinates, a solution called the Natural Area Coding System has been developed

What Is the New System The Natural Area Coding System is an optimized system which has introduced a unified and highly efficient representation for both an area and a location in the world. The system makes the representations of accurate areas and locations so simple that all consumers can easily digest, remember and communicate for their daily activities.

Represent Locations To represent the location of a building  Decimal longitude and latitude coordinates need more than15 characters such as: Longitude: degrees Latitude: degrees  A Natural Area Code needs only 8 characters: NAC: 8CNJ Q8ZG

Represent Areas To represent an area like a city  Using longitude and latitude coordinates requires four decimal numbers for its southwest and northeast corners.  Using a Natural Area Code requires only four characters. For example, the City of Toronto: NAC: 8C Q8

Applications of NAC An eight or ten character NAC can be used as  A Universal Address to specify every building or house in the world  A Global Postal Code to sort all mail from the world level to the final mail box automatically  A Universal Property Identifier to represent each street light, fire hydrant, sewage exit, parking meter, electric wire pole, tree, etc

Advantages of NAC A Natural Area Code is not only highly efficient, but can also be directly  Pinpointed on any map with Universal Map Grids no matter its scale and projection  Measured and navigated with GPS receivers  Used to quickly estimate the distance and direction to any destination

Pinpoint on All Maps

Display Universal Address Capable to display the Universal Address, a GPS receiver will become small, light, affordable and easy to use, due to the elimination of maps. It will make consumer friendly accurate location information like accurate time available anytime anywhere in the world.

Time-Space Watches To incorporate the GPS capability into watches including wrist watches, cellphones, cameras, etc will lead to the birth of the next generation of watches, time-space watches.

Photograph CDJ Q8SF

Business Card

Yellow Page Listings

House Number Plate

Advertisement

Street Sign

Property Listings

Event Notice

Location Based Services

Mail Envelope

Sewage Exit

Street Light

Parking Ticket

Many other uses  Tell a fishing spot, a picnic table, a park bench  Report an emergency location  Identify a bus stop, a fire hydrant, a tree  Record the location of anything happened  Specify a target for missiles

Conclusion The wide use of time-space watches will start a new era of using accurate locations for all location related events and activities. Then you can answer the question of WHERE accurately and easily no matter where you are by simply telling the Universal Address displayed on your time-space watch.

Thank You!