SMS messages can be sent from a mobile phone to the SMS MO (Mobile originating) service we run in the Department of Information Science and Digital Media at UWE bristol. This is a service rented from Clickatell in South Africa. The message is received by a an XQuery script which gets the first word of the message (here it is 'track' or 'tweet' if the status is to be forwarded to the Twitter stream) and fetches the URL of the related service from its routing table. The message parameters (prefix, originating number and message after the prefix) are then sent as the URL parmeters with the service URL. This service separates the message from the address from the latlong (separated by !) and then attempts to geo-code the address if the latlong is not given. The Google geocoding HTTP API will approximately geocode UK places to their latitude and longitude. It is much more accurate in the US where address and ZIP code data is in the public domain, whereas in the UK this data is owned by Ordnance Survey and the Royal Mail and the resultant latitude and longitude are then added to an new time-stamped event. The current track is identified from the originating mobile number and the new event added to the track in the XML database. The lat and long are Flashed back to the originating phone for confirmation if a successful geocoding has been accomplished, and if chosen, a summary will be sent to the associated Twitter stream.
Further scripts transforms the sequence of events in a named track to kml for display on Google Maps or Google Earth.
Add text view of track
Find email interface so updates can be sent via SSB
Revive MMS interface to store photos
Build a standalone GPS/GSM tracker which sends lat/long messages to the service - additional info can be added as part of the message; the service could identifier important information about the vicinity and text back relevant news. OpenGPS tracker project