Spatial Information Appliances: A Next Generation of Geographic Information Systems * Max J. Egenhofer National Center for Geographic Information and Anlaysis Department of Spatial Information Science and Engineering Department of Computer Science University of Maine Orono, ME 04469-5711, USA max@spatial.maine.edu http://www.spatial.maine.edu/~max Abstract. Over the next decade many developments in existing and new information technologies are likely to affect the ways in which science is done, decisions are made, and society operates. Early evidence of these trends is already available in the form of new satellite sensors, the diffusion and miniaturization of GPS receivers, greater Internet bandwidth, cheaper and larger storage, digital libraries, the growth of the WWW, palm-top and pen-based computers, and wireless communication. These technologies will provide exciting new opportunities to improve dramatically decision making and problem solving in the geo-spatial domain. They will also accelerate the trend of moving information technology off the desktop and into the field and into the hands of scientists, professionals, and citizens who discover, work, or perform leisure activities. Devices that combine a hand-held computer with a GPS receiver, a cellular phone, and a digital camera will enable users to integrate spatial analysis into their daily lives, opening geographic information systems (GISs) to the mass markets of day-to-day use. Such Spatial Information Appliances (SIAs) will differ significantly from today’s multi-purpose GISs, because we envision a whole family of portable SIAs that will be tailored to specific needs. Smart glasses, for instance, will allow people to augment reality by seeing additional thematic information or seeing through obstacles. Smart Compasses will be based on entry-level Personal Digital Assistants, giving directions in the field on such dynamic phenomena as weather-fronts or congestions. The Geo-Wand will allow users to query geographic space by pointing to features in the real world. This talk will sketch this vision of ubiquitous geospatial computing and will discuss challenging new research questions about the spatial concepts people employ when they move through space, the interaction styles and modalities people use in the field, the particularities about processing spatial queries posed in the field, the efficient handling of massive amounts of spatio-temporal data, and the on-the-fly integration of new field observations with data warehouses across a distributed information network. * Max Egenhofer's research is supported by the National Science Foundation under grants IRI- 9613646, SBR-9700465, BDI-9723873, IIS-9970123, and EIA-9876707; by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency under grant number NMA202-97-1-1023; by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH, under grant number 1 R 01 ES09816-01; and by Lockheed Martin.