Computer fishing game

Bleep .... Bleep .... Bleep. Old enough to remember Pong? With Pong came the advent of TV-based gaming, a multi-million dollar industry that today occupies the days, minds and hearts of millions of children (and of quite a few so-called adults).

Commercialized in various forms in the early '70s, Pong can trace its roots back to 1966, when the Space Age had just been birthed. Sputnik was a seemingly ominous presence in the sky, and Pong was about to become equally as mesmerizing in the home.

Fast forward nearly four decades to a time when big-collared shirts and bell-bottom pants are near extinct ... Where time and position trigger changes that continuously redefine what's considered "state-of-the-art."

Welcome to the new millennium, where it's all about reality TV--and reality gaming thanks to GPS/GPRS-enabled mobile gaming applications that blur the longstanding line between fantasy and reality.

New Game on the Block

Jacksonville, Florida-based Tiger Telematics and its Gizmondo Europe Ltd. subsidiary recently unveiled plans to begin selling the Gizmondo multi-entertainment device in the United States and across Europe in spring 2005, following the device's late-2004 launch in the U.K. In the month following the October 29 launch of www.gizmondo.com, Tiger Telematics took more than 560,000 pre-orders for Gizmondo. Expected to further fuel Gizmondo sales is Colors, a GPS-enabled game for single or multiple players.

Colors aims to transform gaming worlds by tailoring experiences to each user's real-life, real-time location. By leveraging GPS positioning and GPRS messaging, and integrating this information with Gizmondo's built-in Bluetooth technology and a digital camera, Colors can create a uniquely real and personal gaming experience.

"GPS will do for mobile gaming what 3D technology did for household gaming years ago," said Mikael Astrom, executive producer of Colors. "It represents a revolutionary, not evolutionary, step forward for gaming.

"We only had to see the lit-up eyes and shocked, smiling faces of the select gamers who tested Colors to know we were on the right track when deciding to incorporate real-time location information in the game."

Before the Internet, networked gaming was barely a dream. Now gaming communities are sprouting up across the globe.

"GPS-enabled mobile gaming is the next frontier," Astrom said. "Every game without GPS instantly becomes just a static game--failing to take into consideration where users are or what they're doing."

Added Dimension

By leveraging GPS technology, mobile games such as Colors can allow players to establish geofences around a building, city block or city, to protect their virtual assets.

GPRS functionality delivers networking so players across the globe can form crews to work with or against one another. Add in GPS, and now whenever one Gizmondo user comes in proximity to another in real life, the users can become a part of each other's virtual world via the game screen.

Gizmondo's digital camera enables users to take pictures of themselves and friends, and then map each digital photograph's looks into a character model in the game.

Users pay a nominal fee for access to networked GPS-enabled gaming, and instant messaging and location-based services.

"GPS is where the fun really begins," Astrom said. "We can overlay detailed maps so when you're walking down the street in Colors, your crew's characters not only can closely resemble you and your people, but your virtual surroundings can be the very roads, infrastructure and attractions you see at that precise time in real life."

Design Details

Gizmondo integrates a GPS receiver, antenna and high sensitivity tracking software to deliver surreal gaming experiences, and a host of location-based services such as "Where Am I," "Find the Nearest," "Tracking," "Geofencing," and "Panic Button."

A 12-channel GPS chipset provides stated sensitivity of-16dB-Hz and times to first fix of 45 seconds cold, 35 seconds warm and four seconds hot. Typical positioning accuracy is 5-10 meters outdoors. Weak-signal tracking technology enables fixes through most urban canyons and "light" indoor environments (in buildings that are single story, have wood frames or many windows). In "heavy" indoor environments (in high-rises and subway tunnels), signal blockage or multipath errors may occur.

Tight system design and integration processes further optimize signal acquisition. For instance, filtering techniques in an RF front-end mitigate out-of-band jamming from the unit's LCD screen or other radios.

"If you can't retrieve information, the game bounces you back to the last point of information and tells you about it," Astrom said. "It doesn't pause, and try on and on."

Astrom said GPS-enabled mobile gaming devices can both meet and help set expectations in today's virtual and real worlds.

"With a mapping software upgrade, GPS-enabled gaming devices such as Gizmondo can double as a portable navigation system--empowering users to fight real-life travel delays as well as high-tech virtual turf battles," he said. "The gloves are off in mobile gaming now that GPS is in the picture."

Manufacturers

SiRF Technology of San Jose, California, manufactures the SiRFstarIIe/LP GPS with SiRF-XTrac high sensitivity software integrated into the Gizmondo device. Fractus of Barcelona, Spain, makes the system's GPS antenna. Gizmondo Studios Stockholm, developer of Colors, is a subsidiary of Tiger Telematics (Jacksonville, Florida), as is Gizmondo Europe Ltd.

For information on more location-based mobile games, visit www.mobilegames.blogs.com/mobilegamesblog/locationbased/ and www.in-duce.net/archives/locationbasedmobilephonegames.php.

RELATED ARTICLE: Locate Your Game

Following are just a few of the growing number of other mobile gaming applications incorporating real-time position data:

* WaveMarket -- While urban warfare video games such as Colors are carving a marketplace niche, the applications are not for all people, not to mention all ages. Realizing this, WaveMarket this May plans to give socially conscious mobile communities a game to search out, location tag and eradicate various forms of decay.

Players in this game (yet to be officially named) will become empowered through good deeds and collaborative efforts to identify and clean up graffiti, littered beaches, and run-down buildings. Leveraging WaveMarket's location-blogging technology and WaveSpotter mobile client featuring an interactive mapping interface with overlayed content, the application will be playable on soon-to-be-released Verizon and Sprint phones offering location-based services and Qualcomm gpsOne capabilities.

The application, which supports Qualcomm BREW and Java J2ME technology, can use cell-ID, time difference of arrival (TDOA), or GPS for positioning. GPS-enabled cell phones won't need photo-capturing capabilities to play the game, but it certainly will provide application advantages in location tagging. Similarly, GPS will deliver superior positioning versus cell-ID location techniques.

* GloVentures LLC's Glofun RayGun -- Designed to be played on GPS-enabled handsets including the Nextel/Motorola i710 and i730, RayGun transforms cell phone screens into virtual radar screens used to identify, move toward and trap virtual ghosts in energy fields.

* Blister Entertainment Inc.'s Swordfish -- This application leverages position information to pit users against deep-sea fish equipped with artificial intelligence. Played on Java/GPS-enabled cell phones, Swordfish transforms the world into a virtual ocean and cell phones into virtual fishing rods, GPS data helps users locate the nearest fish and determine casting distance and direction.

* Thomas Winkler's GPS::Tron -- An adaptation of the classic arcade game Tron, this application is played on Nokia and Siemens Bluetooth GPS-enabled mobile phones. GPS::Tron tracks players' movements to create an "augmented reality" in which each player is represented by a line that gets longer with his or her real-time travels. The object of GPS::Tron is to continually lengthen one's tracked line without ever crossing it or an opponent's tracked line of movement.

MARTY WHITFORD, managing editor of GPS World, is old enough to remember losing Pong matches to most of his nine siblings, and now bows down regularly to his 10-year-old son, Mickey, in Playstation 2 gridiron matchups. Perhaps GPS holds the key to this editor turning around his gaming misfortunes. Only time and position will tell.