Keep on the lookout for novel ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea has to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you're working on.

Thomas Edison

Cambrian House began as a crowdsourcing community using a wisdom of crowds based approach to discover new business and technology ideas. These pages are being kept online as a technology demo to showcase Chaordix™.

Looking to harness the power of your crowd? Find out about Chaordix™ - technology that enables enterprises to get the most out of crowdsourcing.

Ideas

View next idea in this round »

digital touch screen map whiteboard

Submitted by: corporate_hipster
Created: Feb 8, 2008, 9:07 am

Join Cambrian House

People

Ideas

Businesses

Connect with talented people. Collaborate on ideas. Realize your vision.

Not freeish. Not freesque. It's free!

The Idea

take any folded map and open it so it takes up a Unlike a GPS map, think of this like a digital map white board. It is intended to make notes, draw routes and zoom in on specific locations and then erased and reused. being digital the marked up on can be sent via email or printed. this would be of use to schools, law engorcement, or a company meeting which need a map for reference or planning.

I thought of this idea when I was...

looking at my regular map but having to move closer to it read the print because i cant zoom in on it.

Comments Posted

rjarvis Posted: February 8, 2008, 7:03 pm

I think a tablet PC is the closest today's technology allows us to get. I could be ignorant of some developments though. Feedback?

alli Posted: February 9, 2008, 10:23 am

Take a look at e-paper or quantum paper or e-ink -- does it have some of the functionality that you're looking for?

SMART technologies makes rigid digital whiteboards. http://www.smarttech.com

vanhees Posted: February 11, 2008, 3:57 am

I was also thinking of a smartboard: my son has them in foundation school.

fossiloflife Posted: February 12, 2008, 3:46 am

it involves more of R&D than programing! n so huge start up costs

Kevin_Cox Posted: February 14, 2008, 2:28 am

Ya, so get a tablet PC or a cheep laptop and retro fit it.

corporate_hipster Posted: February 15, 2008, 9:25 am

Thank you to all that commented.

SMART looks like something what I was saying, but really take a look at your white board over or near your desk and imagine if you could transfer everything written on it to another board or conference room.

The start up cost would be mostly of a design. The pro of a regular white board is that it doesn’t need to be a near a power source.

PeeJayEl Posted: February 15, 2008, 9:44 pm

W.E.D.

PhilipH Posted: February 16, 2008, 6:40 pm

Electronic whiteboards such as the SMART ones alli suggests are pretty well-established. It is indeed possible to transfer written annotations etc between boards, even if at the moment most software just allows very basic drawing (and occasional typing of text). If you want to go down this route, I'd suggest looking at a software solution dedicated to mapping rather than reinventing the wheel on the hardware side.

Combine whiteboard hardware with a Google Maps-style draggable map and the possibility of saving annotations that are tailored to mapping uses and you could have a very powerful interface. Preferably, allow users to import their own symbols and define their own styles and types of annotation for maximum customisability and flexibility.

Of course, digital whiteboards are perfect if you want a fixed installation but you can hardly take a projector with you in the car. I think rjarvis is right in that you want a laptop and preferably a tablet for this. Of course, there's absolutely no reason you couldn't use the same software (or a cut-down reader?) and update it with the annotations made on the master map back on the whiteboard at HQ...

Hello!

Ideas