British Council-Telecommunications

Transcript of the podcast

Alan: So folks, let’s see what we have so far. At our last session I outlined the main areas for Galileo applications – traffic systems, agriculture and the environment, safety devices, leisure and so on. You’ve all got a summary on the handout

Beth: And if I remember correctly you were saying that what’s new in all of this is the convergence of three different bits of technology for the first time

Alan: That’s right. We now have a microchip that can transmit to and from the satellites, which we can combine with mapping databases and deliver through 3G interfaces

Chris: The key to all this as I see it is movement, whether it’s people or products or transport it’s all about movement

Diane: If you stick a chip on a human being you get a personal tracker, good for childminding, monitoring the elderly, soldiers in battle, that sort of thing

Chris: Put one on a product and you get a more efficient way of controlling your supply chain, mapping goods from factory to outlet

Beth: And with transport it can give you better road congestion systems, accident response, disaster relief

Alan: This, ladies and gentlemen is what we already know. Let’s get down to your individual briefs. Diane, you’ve started looking at sport, what have you come up with

Diane: Well, leading on from what Chris was saying about movement I was thinking along the lines of training aids. Microchips can monitor players’ positions throughout a game, individual or team sports. Feed that into a database, crunch the numbers and you have an analysis of how deep or wide a footballer is playing over a period of time, for instance

?Beth: And where does the 3G come in

Diane: This information can be fed to the coach during the game over a handset or whatever. It’s the sort of thing they do at the moment from the touchline, but this way you get instant feedback on all the players, so the system is monitoring all 11 men simultaneously

Alan: I like it. Give me more details and keep working on it. How about you, Beth? You were looking at leisure, weren’t you

Beth: Yeah, I’ve been investigating the executive market, and I came up with SatNav paintballing. Keeping track of your team mates via a handset when you haven’t got a visual

?Alan: Avoids those friendly- fire incidents, I suppose. Sure it’s not being done already

Beth: I don’t think so. Then there’s an add-on for hang-gliding which can give you data on wind speeds, optimum angles for take-off and landing on unfamiliar terrain… Could be used by balloonists too

?Alan: Sounds interesting. And Chris, what about safety applications

Chris: I was looking at skiers. Always getting caught in avalanches, getting lost. A little tracking device to help the mountain rescue dig them out, maybe? That way you know where everyone is on the piste

?…Alan: Good. Diane, what else have you got for us

Answers