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High-tech hub
Wellington has been at the epicentre of the wine boom. And now it could be at the epicentre of the high-tech boom.
A software developer by the name of Steve Fences—up until now, based in Toronto—is moving to Wellington this March as Wellington is the location for beta testing his new application. “Wellington,” says Mr. Fences, “is the perfect representative community. If my new application works here, it will work in Toronto, Vancouver, Shanghai—anywhere.”
Well that certainly sounds intriguing. Tell us more about it.
“It’s quite simple really,” he says. “Let’s suppose I’m standing on a street corner. This program will tell me where I am, in one of two ways. First of all, the mapping function will orient me: it can find that my smartphone is located at the corner of Wharf and Main, and concludes I must be there too. Second of all, if for some reason the mapping function doesn’t work and tells you by mistake you are at the Wellington dump, and you want to double check that, the photographic function of the program will take a picture of the street signs at the corner for you and capture for you the exact location for where you are standing.”
Does that happen often?
“Look, I said we’re beta testing, didn’t I? But there’s more.
“How many times have you wondered whether you’re walking down a long street in the wrong direction? Let’s suppose you can find a major body of water like Lake Ontario. If you point your smartphone to the lake, it will automatically remind you that the lake lies to the south. So all you have to do is tell it that you want to go, say, east, and the program will flash a prompt stating ‘move 90 degrees to your left,’ and there you go: it’s as simple as that.”
But didn’t we learn our north/west/south/east in grade school?
“Maybe you might have done once upon a time, along with cursive writing and clock-hand reading. You’ve got to be more modern these days. But let me show you the main feature of the program.
“Once you know where you are, and you are directionally oriented, you can simply ask the app where the nearest bank, drugstore, hardware store or similar shop or service is. The app will automatically find it for you. So, let’s say I’m still standing at Wharf and Main and I ask it to tell me where the nearest grocery store is. The app will search its Wellington database and spit out an answer in a matter of seconds.”
But isn’t there a grocery store on the corner of Wharf and Main, right before your eyes?
“Yes, you and I know that now; but I’m talking about the visitor to town who keeps his nose in his smartphone. This app lets him leave it there.
“The database is also wired to respond to more complicated commands. I’ve been working on asking it ‘where do I go to get a latte at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday?’ It’s been a tough slog, but I think we’re almost there. I don’t want to make it seem this town is dry on a Tuesday afternon. Should I include the places with Keurig machines? And should I have separate category for non-fat lattes, or for capuccinos? Who’s to say but me: it’s a big responsibility.
“What I’m also having trouble with is vacation rentals. Right now, if I tell it to ‘show me summer vacation rentals in Wellington,’ it yields far too many answers to fit on a page. I’m thinking of reprogramming it so that it just shows me properties that are not vacation rentals.
“I’m also trying to think through the abattoir and art gallery issue. Perhaps people might get a little upset if they use the wrong command when they’re looking to purchase art. We could move one of them into galleries- art, or slaughterhouses-meat. And then I suppose we’d have to list galleries-rogues, or slaughterhouses-vegetables. And what about corner stores? Do we list them separately from convenience stores? And do we include closed stores, or just open ones? What if stores might reopen: if we don’t guess right, it would be a pain in the neck to come back and re-input everything? It’s like you have to have a crystal ball.
“We just have to get the coding protocols right, which is why we’re starting here in Wellington. I just keep telling myself Shanghai will be a piece of cake after this. But I have to confess, even little Wellington is giving me cold sweats. I guess maybe I should be doing a little more alpha testing as well.”
Wellington: right at the corner of Wharf and Main, a high-tech hub. Who would have thought it?
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