Virtual Tourists in the Swiss Alps

Roland Piquepaille writes "Farmers in Switzerland receive money from their government for letting their cows eat young trees in the Alps. But why? Because this is improving the mountain views for tourists who might return year after year and spend their cash in the country. As the Swiss government wants to wisely spend its money, it is using a computer model of the mountains populated by virtual tourists -- or software agents -- which tirelessly take the same roads again and again and give their appreciation about the best spots. The Economist reports about these virtual tourists in this very cleverly-titled article, "Computer browsers." What will be the next logical step? Pay more the farmers with the strongest potential to improve the views for real tourists? Wrong. Instead, real hikers will be invited to explore the virtual Alps to give their feedback. Their observations will be then integrated into the software managing the virtual travelers. Read more for pictures and references."

Comments

Re:Cows can eat trees??

[Coocha]

I'm too lazy to sift through the thread and see if someone's already answered this, but cows, sheep, goats, etc. will all eat trees. Specifically, this article is referring to natural regeneration; not trees in the large-and-I-can-make-furniture-out-of-them sense, but trees in the in-120-years-I-can-make-furniture-out-of-them-sens e. Nothing more than a branch sticking out the ground, so to speak. IAAPF (I am a Professional Forester) so I can say that some species are actually quite tasty too! (Sassafras tastes like root beer, and black birch tastes like wintergreen for example)

Cherry the Cow in Gruyere

[Ranger]

Note. Most of this is pretty boring except for the last bit.

I was lucky enough to visit Swizterland this summer. Spent most of my time around Geneva. Saw the CERN visitor center, and saw the very first web server, a NeXT cube. Waited too late to get reservations in time to get the full tour. Anyway, this whole business of the cows eating trees to clear the mountain views sounds a bit odd. I really doubt the Swiss are that stupid. We went and saw the Matterhorn and the only thing that obscured the view was clouds. It finally cleared up enough so we could see 90% of the mountain. Zermatt was like a big Disney attraction with lots of Japanese tourists.

I visited Gruyere and saw the castle and the H.R. Giger Museum.. He's one sick puppy. Had a beer at his Giger Bar. That was cool. Gruyere is of course famous for it's cheese. We took the took the tour of the cheese factory at the base of the mountain. We had an electronic device that we could punch in a number and hear the narration for each station. Our narrator was Cherry the Cow. She informed us when drinking her milk you could taste EVERYTHING she's ever eaten.

Thank God we don't drink dog's milk or we'd be able taste everything they've ever eaten or excreted and eaten or vomited and eaten or drank out of the toilet.