physical-web

The intention is that the client (whether that's the OS itself or an app as in the current Android proof-of-concept) visiting the broadcast URL will return specific metadata that will allow the user to know what the target content / action is, rather than content itself - https://github.com/google/physical-web/blob/master/documenta... There is obviously some potential for data snooping and privacy issues, but if the experiment becomes a full standard then it will likely be fleshed out much more to avoid this issue. Pulling metadata from a publicly broadcast (and therefore inspectable) URL still feels more transparent than the iBeacons implementation, which mediates all beacon interactivity through the "black box" of an app with unknown configuration (with regard to exactly which beacons it listens for - it could be a single UUID, or it co

Thanks for the physical web link - you can easily see Googles "play to our strengths not Apples" thinking behind it (https://github.com/google/physical-web/blob/master/documenta...) I like it - might have to try a RPi build for one

I hate all these FUD headlines that claim iBeacons can track you or send you adverts - everything to do with beacons is (at present) mediated by an app, and therefore subject to a user installing it and granting permissions. Sure, you can get people to install stuff that they don't understand and which will allow snooping etc. but that's by no means constrained to anything using the (Apple-owned) iBeacon standard. I'll be more interested in keeping an eye on the URL-centric 'physical Web" experimental project recently revealed by Google (https://github.com/google/physical-web) as that potentially removes the need for app-based mediation of beacon (without the "i" prefix) interactions, uses the universality of http and URLs for content identification, and could make for a much lower-friction way of implementing beacon integration across di

>How do I know the item listed as "Bus Stop" is actually the bus stop, and not someone's malicious Raspberry Pi hidden in the bush next to it? The same way you know that top search results are accurate for a given word/phrase. As stated multiple times throughout the introduction[1] the solution for filtering out spam will probably have an implementation similar to internet search engines. [1]: https://github.com/google/physical-web/blob/master/documenta...

Huh, this sounds like it could dovetail beautifully with FirefoxOS's attempt to blur the lines between "native apps" and web content. It'd probably be pretty easy to have these things show up in an "Ambient" smart collection on the homescreen, or in the universal search pane... Edit: Looks like you can get this running on an RFDuino (https://github.com/google/physical-web/blob/master/documenta...), which are currently $20 at MicroCenter, and a USB shield is $25. Still 2 in stock in the Twin Cities, if anyone else is interested! Edit 2: ...Though, it looks like FxOS doesn't currently support BLE (https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Bluetooth#Unsupported_Bluetooth...), so this may not be the most useful path at the moment. :)