Location, the Next Data Frontier

https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-textile-41949/“ 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone, at 2.5 quintillion bytes of data a day! And with new devices, sensors, and technologies emerging, the data growth rate will likely accelerate even more.” -IBM in 2016.

If you think 2.5 quintillion bytes of data per day is a lot, we’re just getting started. So far, much of this data has been cultivated and created in the digital world. Everytime you post, tweet, or create a profile, you are directly contributing to the ever growing mountain of data. But data creation will explode once it bleeds over from the digital world to the physical one.

One example of this is Uber, a company that has been actively developing the concept of self-driving vehicles for several years now. Their network of hundreds of thousands of employees driving all over the world provide invaluable data including: where people get picked up most frequently, at what time, what paths do the drivers take, etc. After a brief set back in March 2017 because one of their test vehicles crashed, Uber has doubled down on pushing the envelope in this field by recently purchasing 24,000 smart cars from Volvo:

Volvo Cars Will Supply Uber With Up to 24,000 Self-Driving Cars

Although the possibility of a whole fleet of self-driving cars in one city sounds exciting, it also presents a familiar concern users of social media platforms face. Your behavior, your tendencies, and your favorite routes will be stored by a single entity. Not only that, it will also be tracked and analyzed by a complete stranger. That means there is one central point of failure that could release all of that data to the world.

Blockchain technology will be able to remove the middleman in a very similar way to how it removed them for financial transactions. Rather than relying on a third party to track, verify, and maintain user data, it will be possible to do so in a trustless way through smart contracts:

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BlockchainAi will be one of the biggest industries in the future, autonomous companies distributed via blockchains governed by Ai. Think about uber without a middle man, where drivers work to maintain the hash, Ai maintains the blockchain & drivers are owners of the network.

 — @Aztek_btc

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With the emergence of location-based technologies, our safety will depend on the accuracy and validity of the data our products are receiving. Doing so in a decentralized manner would create a secure and trustless network that could become a point of reference for the technology of tomorrow. However, trustlessly confirming location data is difficult and logistically complicated. There have been many previous attempts, but all have ended up relying on a single entity to report, track, and store the data. However, the XYO Network project has discovered not only a decentralized but scalable solution to this problem through something called “Proof of Origin & Bound Witness.”

The XYO Network

https://xyo.network/

This method of cryptographically anchoring data requires 4 components:

1. Sentinels- They gather data about their location, environment, and other nearby XYO Network devices and store this information on an onboard digital ledger.
2. Bridges- These relay information from Sentinels to the public blockchain where it is stored in perpetuity.
3. Archivists- These store and index the information transmitted via Bridges.
4. Diviners- They access the information in order to verify location or answer queries.

First, Sentinels collect data around their location and send it to Bridges. This creates an interaction history between the two, which is an unalterable Proof of Origin Chain. This chain is then stored and indexed through the Archivists which Diveners can then use to provide location verification for specific Sentinel(s).

Bound Witness is the concept where the XYO network compares the Proof of Origin Chains on each individuals device at the point of their interaction. This creates a “Bound Witness” and allows the network to verify that the two devices came into contact with each other. In this way, a moving object can be tracked as it interacts with sentinels that are anchored at specific locations. The Bound Witness, or the interaction between two Proof of Origin Chains, serves as a marker for the network to verify that a transaction occurred at a specific block-height. This allows the ability to not only track the location of an object but also to timestamp it.

Applications

The applications of this ERC20 token will only be limited by the number of projects that require location data.

eCommerce

On Nov. 2017, Comcast shared that 30% of packages have been reported stolen from online shopping. However, how do you prove that your package was stolen? It ultimately turns into a matter of trusting the customer.

But what if the merchant was able to track every step of their shipments progress? The XYO network would be able to offer a payment-on-delivery service utilizing a smart contract to protect the merchant from fraud or loss.

Airline Luggage

This particular issue hits home for me. I can’t tell you all of the horror stories I’ve experienced with airlines either losing my luggage or sending it to the wrong airport. XYO would allow you to track the location of your luggage throughout your entire flight from the comfort of your mobile phone. This would immediately implement a strong system of accountability through a decentralized and trustless network.

Insurance of High Value Goods

The XYO Network will be able to report an insured item’s location by providing independently verified and trustless location data. The ability to recover an item that has been reported as lost or stolen satisfies the insured party, and the ability to locate such an item in the case of a falsely reported claim protects the insurer from fraud. Therefore, The XYO Network’s decentralized blockchain technology gives both the insurer and the insuree access to the same verified data and ultimately establishes unprecedented accountability for both parties.

Conclusion

The XYO Network is a promising project that seeks to grow with the developing companies in the field of location data. They also boast a minimum viable product through an impressive Proof of Location oracle network composed of over a million Bluetooth and GPS devices in the world. Should this project deliver on its grand ambitions, it will surely become a highly utilized protocol for companies requiring seamless integration of a verifiable network to track movement without building the infrastructure themselves.

Remember to give me claps to the left, donations below, and share with your friends! Until next time, onwards and upwards. 😁

*This was submitted to the XYO Bounty Program

Location, the Next Data Frontier was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.