Even if Coordinates Falter, Our Dream Stands Firm: the Path to the Metaverse.
The Line 2 Monument and a Lesson in Coordinates
Seoul-Meteo Line 2 has 273 exits.
At each one, we set up Nin.Earth Monuments, a project designed to let people experience AR and the Metaverse through their smartphones in everyday life.
Our goal was simple: when commuters raised their phones, another digital layer would overlap with reality.
But when I checked on-site, I was taken aback. The Monument did not appear where it should have.
At first, I thought it was the GPS struggling amid the dense urban skyline. But soon I discovered the real reason. My smartphone(Galaxy S21) did not support dual-band GNSS (L1 + L5 signals).
The problem wasn’t just a small positioning error. It was a gap between generations of technology.
Turning Points in History
This gap becomes clearer when we trace the history of satellite navigation.
In 1978, the USA launched the first GPS satellite.
However, the civilian L1 signal contained an intentional distortion called Selective Availability (SA), creating errors of tens of meters.
Location data was, for all practical purposes, a military asset.
On May, 2000, President Bill Clinton announced the removal of SA, and the situation changed overnight.
Civilians could now use GPS with meter-level accuracy. Car navigation systems and location-based services spread rapidly.
The “Age of Navigation” had begun.
In 2006, the EU launched the first Galileo satellite.
GPS was no longer USA’s monopoly; Europe, China, Russia, and Japan joined in, ushering in the era of GNSS.
Then, in 2008, the iPhone 3G came equipped with a GPS chip, bringing location services into the palm of everyone’s hand.
Satellites and smartphones converged, and the idea that “location is life” became a new paradigm.
A decisive leap came in 2017. Broadcom announced the world’s first dual-band GNSS chip, and the following year, Xiaomi’s Mi 8 became the first phone to adopt it.
Around the same time, countries began launching more satellites transmitting precise signals, and smartphone location accuracy improved noticeably.
From then on, dual-band GNSS became standard in flagships: Samsung from the Galaxy S22 series and Apple from the iPhone 14 Pro series.
Nin.Earth and the Metaverse We Envision
The positioning error I experienced with the Line 2 Monuments was not just a trivial glitch.
It was the inevitable result of the pace of satellite infrastructure expansion, the evolution of GNSS chip technology, and the generational divide between devices.
Yet this small setback made one truth clearer: the Metaverse cannot exist as a mere illusion.
It must be grounded in a technical foundation that links the Digital Earth with the physical world in precise detail.
The Line 2 Monument project demonstrated that possibility while also revealing the challenges we still face.
And we are preparing. From a technology that began as a military tool, GPS has evolved into a global utility.
Now, Nin.Earth seeks to carry that history forward—opening a new Internet where anyone can inscribe coordinates, spaces, and meanings into their everyday lives.
This is the path we are on. This is the journey of Nin.Earth.
