Eric Blue has been tracking his location since 2002 using various methods including GPS devices, Google Latitude, and building his own location tracking system. He started with a GPS device to track hikes and trips, then created a personal travel journal consolidating photos, videos and details of trips over 10 years. Inspired by others' work on lifelogging, he experimented with real-time GPS tracking apps on his iPhone. While Google Latitude was useful, he wanted more control so built his own location tracking system recording over 1 million coordinates since 2010. His system integrates with maps and places and provides reports on top visited locations and track logs by date and location.

1. Los Angeles QS Meetup Location Tracking Oct 15th, 2011 Eric Blue Blog: http://eric-blue.com Twitter: @ericblue

2. 2 Quantified Self – Location Tracking

3. How I started tracking location Early projects Creating a personal travel journal My Personal Memex GPS tracking “Where’s Eric?” Google Latitude DIY – Build my own Latitude Personal GPS recorder tracking 1 million+ coordinates Detailed reporting on where I’ve been for over 1 year 3 Overview

4. 1st GPS device from 2002 – eTrex Vista Started out as a hobby: tracking hikes, biking + road trips In 2008 I created a personal travel journal Consolidated all pictures + videos from the past 10 years Pieced together memories and created a record of all trips I’ve been on Interests in both life logging and tracking where I’ve been In 2010 started an experiment with GPS Carrying a small GPS device virtually 24/7 Curiosity in analyzing patterns and building memories 4 How I Started Tracking Location

5. 5 My Personal Travel Journal - Inspiration

6. A journal of sorts, listing where I’ve been from 1990s to today Text of who, what, when, where? Pictures + Videos Built on Mediawiki (used by Wikipedia) with semantic capabilities Ask it where you’ve been & it will answer! Browse by timeline, location, person 6 My Personal Travel Journal [1]

7. 7 My Personal Travel Journal [2]

8. 8 My Personal Travel Journal [3]

9. 9 My Personal Travel Journal [4]

10. Great for centralizing information in one place Greatly improves recall and enhances memory Details about where you’ve been within seconds Lots of work Manual recall needed to fill in details about the trip and locations Need something automated to tell you where you’ve been Inspired by Gordon Bell’s work (MyLifeBits) and his book Total Recall Leverage advances in GPS tech + cell phones to make location tracking ambient 10 My Personal Travel Journal -Discovery

11. Tracking my location with my cell phone Inspired by a website I saw in 2006 – Where’s Tim? Real-time GPS tracking I wanted to do this for years; luckily the iPhone made it possible Tried many early iPhone apps to get GPS coordinates and post to a website In 2010 I used InstaMapper for a short while Wrote an app to get lat/long, lookup address with GeoNames, and display on a Google Map 11 GPS Tracking – “Where’s Eric?” [1]

12. 12 GPS Tracking – “Where’s Eric?” [2]

13. Lessons Learned? Nifty prototype, but not really practical for detailed tracking Technology isn’t there yet Still had an original iPhone 3G – no background apps Battery drain was pretty significant Needs some “smarts” about places, not just viewing coordinates Mainly interested in tracking location for my own analysis 13 GPS Tracking – “Where’s Eric?” [3]

14. Excited to try Google Latitude, overall very good features Let’s you share location with others if desired Has a History feature Download your track log for import into Google Earth (KML) Has reports on places you’ve visited Search track log by date 14 GPS Tracking – Google Latitude [1]

15. 15 GPS Tracking – Google Latitude [2]

16. Lessons Learned? Runs in the background and doesn’t impact battery too much Accuracy is an issue Uses cell tower data for triangulation at times; can show me miles from where I really am Looking for a coordinates every few seconds not minutes Limit reliance on 3rd party sites for sharing location What about privacy? 16 GPS Tracking – Google Latitude [3]

17. 17 GPS Tracking

18. DIY? I’ll build my own version of Google Latitude! Use a small, high-quality GPS that can record lat/long every second – Qstarz BT-Q1000XT GPS Carry with me at all times (fits in my pocket) Logged over 1 million coordinates since Sept. 2010 Integrates with Google Maps, Geocoding, and Places Part of my personal project to track other quantified gadgets for fitness, sleep, health, etc. TRAQS.me (Tools for Reporting & Analysis of the Quantified Self) – http://traqs.me 18 GPS Tracking – Do It Yourself! [1]

19. Qstarz– small + long battery life Upload GPX data once a month Wrote software to process and Determine Top Places I visit Businesses, Restaurants, etc. Places I’ve travelled – city/state Counter to track # visits, last visit date Support proximity searching View track log by date, location, top visits, etc. 19 GPS Tracking – Do it Yourself! [2]

20. 20 DIY – Top Places Report

21. 21 DIY – Top Places Map View

22. 22 DIY – Proximity Search

23. 23 DIY – Track Log By Date

24. Experiments for the Future? Integrate new automated GPS tracking with my original Personal Travel Journal Use technology to help improve recall & build a strong memory Lookup my location history on the go Find out “When was I here?” from my iPhone Incorporate heatmaps Additional information Links to this presentation and other articles & projects at the Quantified Self Los Angeles Wiki http://quantifiedselfla.wikispaces.com/ 24 Location Tracking - Conclusion