Textually writes about the BBC’s latest experiment - virtual graffiti, though they’re not calling it that.

The BBC have partnered with Hewlett-Packard Labs and Gavitec, to support a new series, Coast. They’ve created 39 interactive coastal walks around the UK, including 12 you follow using your Series 60 Nokia phone.

"The trial will allow roving ramblers to reach for their phone and call up site-specific extra audio and WAP content from the programme using "visual triggers" and their mobiles phones"

Data codes are used to access the information (not dissimilar from bar codes), although it’s not entirely clear how these work, at this point. However, it sounds similar to Shot Codes in that people take a photo with their phone and get taken to the appropriate WAP site.

I believe that this concept is going all the way to mainstream, as we increasingly link our physical worlds with the digital one. One example of how this might be used is to have a physical Wikipedia, for people to find out more about their surroundings. I’m giving a speech at Wikimania in Frankfurt in a couple of weeks, if anyone’s interested in this area. Just have to write the bloody thing first ;-(

Naturally, the technology will evolve so that the phone sniffs links out for you, rather than needing to click on a physical hyperlink. Then you just need to tell it what kind of thing you’d like info on and it’ll alert you accordingly. Obviously, if you have a few minutes to kill, you’ll be able to browse links manually too.

My hope is that if I can get the Wikipedia expertise, energy and execution skills on board, that we could really make this happen.