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Local Tourist Guide in a (Linux) Box
Andrew Sealey writes "Antenna Audio, the largest heritage and tourism interpretation company has just licensed a location-based media platform and associated linux portable media device from a UK company called Node to enable them to do some pretty cool stuff with traditional tourist attractions. People will hire the linux based device at their entry point and then as they walk around and explore the attraction the device will search huge archives of rich media video and audio dependent on who a user is, where they are and what they are looking at. Their top sites in the US are places such as Alcatraz, MoMA in New York and Elvis Presley Graceland's property and the rumour is that Elvis's property may be one of the first to be converted to this new technology."
The privacy issues associated with this are bugging me... what a cute disguise for a way to track foreigners :-P
Tux now lives in Graceland.
(Gee, I shouldn't post while I'm still on my first coffe of the day...)
I'm a gadget guy, so this caught my interest with a quickness. From a quick look at the site I'm just wondering...
Could there be some kind of GPS tech. involved where if you want to go to a specific exhibit in the museum it directs you that way from your current location. On a more mundane but no less important note, this would also be useful finding the restroom facilities at the game.(Important after a couple of beers)
These are the thoughts that keep me out of the really good schools I guess.
I think it's quite weird, distracting the tourist from the real thing. Sure, some trivia may be useful, but do I really want MEDIA flooding me when I stare at something ? Isn't the whole point of BEING there kind of defeated by staring at multimedia available to you from anywyere else ?
What about adware concerns? I am sure it will track all your whereabouts at all times and send you ads relating to those whereabouts. Technology is all about profit!
What does your Credit Report look like?
...and I just hope they make them less restrictive than the current audio-tour players. They were ok in most respects, except that it was not possible to rewind beyond the most recent "checkpoint" on the tour. Missed the end of that bit? Sorry, gotta keep the turnover up...keep moving!
Besides that, I think it would be rather distracting from the real-life thing you're there to see to have to devote a lot of eyeball time to watching a tiny screen. Much better would be some sort of head-mounted heads-up display overlaid on whatever you're looking at (inertial orientation sensors?). Circles and arrows (and an audio paragraph describing what each one is (thanks Arlo)) would actually be quite an improvement over the clunky method in the audio-only tour: "Now walk toward the door, away from A and B block, and stop at the windows on the right..." Sheesh.
Come to that point, it would probably be simpler to have wireless headphones fed from a roving tour robot, with a high-mounted screen to watch suplemental materials on, and a laser pointer to...well, point things out. This would actually be better than regular human tour guides, as competing tour groups would wind up competing with each other for sound.
Unless maybe you just give the human tour guide a corresponding headset mic and a laser pointer. Then all you're missing is the actual supplemental video. Hmmm.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Having used those handset audio guided tour things, I can see that this is certainly a step up.
What would be even better would be to have some standard system whereby anyone with a wireless enabled PDA type device can walk into some attraction/theme park, and fire up their own PDA through which the audio/video can be viewed over some standard URL. Those rental things are often damaged or otherwise not working a lot of the time anyway.
The next step (or perhaps the first step) could even be a system where any mobile phone can be used as a guided tour handset. A combination of a micro-cell and custom phone system (Asterisk?) could achieve this.
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
I have thought about building a small system for Homes. It would be nice to advertise your house via a local website. As the car drives up, the customer can have info and a virtual tour of the place. In addition, they can save the buy info on their computer.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A small county in Denmark has already implemented this idea, aCon allows tourists to dial a phone number from their cell phones and via the phone recieve a detailed description af the attraction or site they are at. Not as "media rich" as this story's device this i think is more user friendly and less invasive in terms of privacy. Also it can be done via _any_ cellphone that works in Denmark, Europe.
Good or bad, It is in the eye of the beholder. Don't confuse luck with skill.
...and an ex-colleague of mine works there. Every so often, he spends a day wandering around fields testing the location based stuff out.
They seem like a pretty bright bunch of folks. I've been meaning to go up there at some point and have a play with one of these gadgets, but I haven't found the time yet. Anyway, apparantly, it all Just Works.
You win again, gravity!
When I walk around a stately home I don't fancy wearing headphones, I don't want to have to fiddle with buttons, and I am quite capable of looking around me and reading the catalogue or notes in the room. Staring at a small LCD screen when I am in 'the great room' seems like going to a brewery and drinking from a can!
/. geeks (only the dishonest ones, of course!).
I also wonder what effect all the additional multimedia presentations will have on throughput - if many people start to linger to watch the material then it may cause a build up of people in certain areas.
I can also see people bumping into each other as they focus on the screens rather than where they are going!
Hire cost will also be a factor - what if a family is touring and mum, dad and the kids all want a look-see - are we sharing headphones? Will all the tugging and pulling give the headphones a short life - fair enough they only cost around 30p a set trade price (for generic stereo headphones), but it soon adds up.
I'm sure this gadget will be useful for people with visual or audio impairment but the whole business of charging, cleaning, maintenance etc. for a fraction of the overall visitor base seems excessive for the ROI. Oh, and how many are going to get nicked by
I'll take the random-access guide book with beautiful pictures and descriptive text that I can take home and look at again and again at my own pace.
AT&ROFLMAO
Windows is mostly known for:
Another feature of Windows is its constantly changing GUI... every version got a new and "improved" GUI...
Windows is manufactured by a company called Microsoft.