'Virtual sticky note' on horizon

It might feel better to nail your demands to a wall, but trade that hammer for a cell phone and a group of engineers at Duke University believes you'll soon be using their software to post virtual sticky notes.

And you'll do it instead of using Google to find the information you need. Slide this invention into the category titled "Big Ideas."

"Why not?" asked Romit Roy Choudhury, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering who was instrumental in developing the sticky note program.

"Google is great, but you don't interact with it. It only responds to search terms. There is no human on the other end."

This idea, he explained, is more like a blend of cell phones, search engines, Facebook and Wikipedia.

It will send most technophobes running for cover.

Choudhury presented the software at a recent technology conference in Colorado. There is no need for gadget lovers to place their orders because it's not for sale.

"I live by generating new ideas," Choudhury said, "not necessarily converting that to a new product."

Widespread use of the software will depend on several critical changes in the coming years, Choudhury said.

The first involves an expanded role for GPS -- or Global Positioning Systems -- in cell phones. GPS devices communicate with satellites and then determine the user's precise location.

This is critical for the sticky note program because the notes are "posted" at the coordinates dictated by GPS systems.

For example, someone who wanted to leave a note involving a restaurant, hotel or a store would access a Web site showing a map with those locations. Each location would be tagged by its GPS coordinates.

Users could then post notes at a given location on the Internet map, with the notes organized according to GPS coordinates. The notes could take the form of text, audio, video or pictures.

The notes would be posted from other computers or other cell phones if those phones had an Internet connection.

Once the notes are posted by location, other cell phone users who stand at that address can access any note tagged for the spot.

Choudhury envisions several uses from the mundane to the dramatic.

It would be fairly simple to post or read restaurant reviews using sticky notes. Coming events from political rallies to concerts could be posted at the locations where they will be held.

But the software also lets users communicate with anyone else who happens to be standing at the location. Depending on the situation, that person could be a store owner, a customer or an eyewitness to an unfolding event.

"So if someone is standing at the location you are interested in and you need information about that location immediately, they can answer you in real-time," Choudhury said.

But will people use it?

Just because technology allows people to find each other and communicate instantly based on location doesn't mean they will do it.

"Much like Facebook or Wikipedia, people have to choose to participate and contribute material," Choudhury said. "And like other social networks, there are issues of privacy."

The quality and quantity of posted material also would matter, said Roger Entner, a telecommunications analyst with Nielsen IAG in New York.

"Reality gets in the way of these ideas sometimes," Entner said. "This sounds like an evolutionary idea more than a revolutionary one, but I haven't heard anything like it before."

And Choudhury said he was encouraged when Verizon agreed to pay for the undergraduate work involved in the project. Graduate student work is covered as part of a larger grant from the National Science Foundation.

If communication companies retain their interest, Choudhury thinks, such software will be a common part of cell phones within five years. Technology will demand it.

Go ahead and nail that promise to the wall.

E-mail Tim Simmons at tim.simmons(at)newsobserver.com.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)