Blockchain Provides Solutions for Map 3.0

[FriedrichKou]

"Maps, like faces, are the signature of history." -- Will Durant

What is Map 3.0?
Currently, there are 2 kinds of map, digital map, for example Goggle Map and open map, such as Mapbox, Maplilary and Mapxus. Digital map, map 1.0, lacks of oneness, privacy and large-scale community contribution and open map, map 2.0, lacks of technology superiority and social-economic structure for community governance and incentive but its data is supported by global community while map 3.0 is totally different. Map 3.0 is consensus map, Hyperion, enabled by decentralized map technology, self-govern and sustainable map economy, is a coherent system design of technology, community and economy.
In several dimensions, the current centralized map system of the world is flawed and is ripe for disruption. Blockchain technology with its ability to facilitate global collaboration in an open and secure manner, has huge potential to disrupt the status quo by underpinning the birth of a new, open, decentralized map economy that will appeal to the mass market.
We have pioneered a new open map architecture, the Hyperion ecosystem, based on the our widely adopted open map technology and latest advancements of Blockchain technology. This ecosystem is designed to reward everyone with a share in the wealth they create and will ensure privacy is protected whilst hosting a new generation of decentralized applications requiring quality map services.

To better understand the significance of the Hyperion ecosystem, one must first comprehend the significance of location data. Did you know that 80% of all business data has a location component to it ? This is not surprising given that maps constitute the building block of mobility, providing the memory block that underpin mobility for people, IoT devices and robots.
Some of the far-reaching impact of location data are summarized below:
1. Location data is a fundamental element for enriching business data sets with no obvious links and helps visualize business data in familiar ways, providing more in-depth analytics. This enables companies to make smarter and more informed business decisions.
2. Location data fuels innovation. In services that are particularly location-aware, such as Uber and Waze, accurate location and routing are fundamental to the value they provide to users.
3. Location data and analytics has helped advance the advertising technology and marketing space. This aids with better customer profiling and therefore targeting, and extends beyond just location-based mobile advertising.

The Problem of Current Map

As the fundamental building block of mobility, maps should be and remain pervasive, accurate and privacy-preserved. However, the current map system is flawed as elaborated in the following:

Incomplete, Inaccurate and Outdated Map Data

Location data is widely distributed and long-tailed, which means that the production and maintenance of a global map ought to be distributed by nature. However, the production of maps are currently centralized and as such, has resulted in maps that are incomplete, inaccurate, and outdated. Did you know that most of the Earth’s surface lacks an address? According to the United Nations, 70% of the world is unaddressed, including more than half of the world’s sprawling urban developments. By outsourcing map production to third parties, we are effectively giving them control over not only what gets shown on the map, but also the power to dictate where we go and how we get there. In the Capitalistic 21st century era, it seems inevitable that large companies like Google will monetize location-based searches, with either premium results or priority ordering (if it hasn't done so already).

Limited Transparency, Privacy and Ownership

People have increased concerns of misuse of our location data - we have no transparency on how data were monetized - often by the third parties in control our data. There is no true user privacy in front of map service providers that even pseudo-anonymous data can be cross-referenced with other data to identify the user. There is a saying that neatly summaries this state of play, “if you are not paying for the product, you are the product." As popular apps harvest location data of the masses, the potential for leaking or exploiting this data has never been higher. The recent Facebook-Cambridge Analytics scandal is case in point and has brought to our attention how the large players have been making money off users data all along without them knowing. If everyone has data that they own and generate, isn’t it about time that they should directly benefit from their own data instead of just relying on “free” services?
Furthermore, it is prohibitively expensive and cumbersome for users to build their own map service due to the
high technology barrier. Innovation and entrepreneurship are therefore stifled. We need autonomy not on just
data but the technology to provision map services at our will - not to let map companies decide what shows
on the map and in which way we use map services. In short, in a more egalitarian society, people are calling
for autonomy over digital location.

Proposed Solution of Blockchain

Hyperion organically integrates innovations of three important dimensions, coined as the Hyperion Trinity of map technology, economy and society structures, to eventually achieve a sustainable and self-governed map economy of the world. People are empowered to build map technology, share economical return and govern map communities.
Hyperion Trinity includes:
- Crowd-build to incentive quality global map data contribution and distributed system infrastructure hosting with Hyperion Digital Location Right (HDLR) as reward, i.e., HDLR mining;
- Crowd-share to establish a sustainable decentralized map economy, in which map services fees are distributed to HDLR owners accordingly by smart contract, i.e., HDLR dividend;
- Crowd-govern to reach consensus on technology and social-economic transition with delegated governance, i.e., HDLR voting. The Hyperion global community is consisted of multi-level regional communities governed by HDLR holders delegates of respective regions.
Technology and Service Architecture
- Protocol Layer: the Hyperion Protocol Network is a global network of Hyperion Protocol Nodes with installation of MapChain (Hyperion Blockchain), smart contract, and trusted distributed storage. MapChain, optimized for location data, supports cross-chain communication for enhanced interoperability and smart contract for extensibility. MapChain natively integrates our innovative Spatial Consensus Protocol (SCP) to reach consensus of static location data (map) and dynamic location data (localization) in a secure and verifiable manner. MapChain employs BFT + dPOS as block producing consensus algorithm to support scalable map services and enforce a consistent delegated governance structure of the Hyperion community;
- Service Layer: this layer includes full-stack map services with tight integration with MapChain. Specifically,it includes map production service (dMapper), map service (dMap) and location data intelligence platform (Hyperion Marketplace). Users can stake HYN (pay-by-inflation) to access dMapper and dMap services,and spend HYN (pay-by-fee) for Hyperion Marketplace services;
- Ecosystem Layer: Location-based services (LBS), such as location-based social network, advertisement and gaming, accrue value to HDLR. Hyperion will collaborate with a wide spectrum of LBS to enrich the Hyperion ecosystem. To demonstrate the full power of Hyperion services, Hyperion will develop example LBS, e.g., a consuming-facing map service named Titan and a location-based game.
Time and space attributes are meta data. It implies that all services happen on the map. The invention of clock provides human with the consensus of time, i.e. the Temporal Consensus. However, the ability to correctly understand our surrounding by community, i.e. the Spatial Consensus, is constrained due to centralized control and censorship. Our mission is to provide Spatial Consensus driven map of the world.