Richard Ling from the Inc group was asked by the New York Times to contribute to an article about the impact of mobile phones on airplanes.
Would you like to know more about GPS, Bluetooth, QRCodes and mobile cameras? and would you like to influence the developments of future tourist information systems?
ITU is involved in a national research project (DANVIFO.dk) in which we are investigating the use of IT in the experience economy. In particular we are investigating and have developed prototypes using mobile technology such as GPS, Bluetooth, QRCodes and the cameras to provide tourist with for example location-based information both indoor and outdoor. In addition to this we are also investigating newer interaction principle such as multitouch screens, eye tracking and Nintendo Wii controllers for enhanced interaction in public places such as museums, kiosks etc.
The project uses Bornholm as a particular case and we are collaborating with several partners in Bornholm who are eager to continue the collaboration with researchers and students from ITU.
Doesn’t this sound interesting?
We are proposing several master thesis projects but are you motivated to challenges within (but not limited to) the following areas:
• Design and analysis of interfaces and homepages on mobile devices
• Development of location-based systems and games
• Employing GPS, Bluetooth, QRCode and cameras in novel solutions aimed at the experience economy.
• New interaction principles using multi touch, eye tracking or Wii controllers
- then don’t hesitate to contact Dan W. Hansen (witzner@itu.dk) office 3D08 at any time.
Both Danish and English speaking students naturally are welcome
I finally got a new phone, so I’ve started using Imity, an application that uses bluetooth to connect you with people that are near that you either know or do not know. And it works! Yesterday I was eating tapas at Atame with a friend of mine, suddenly the persons sitting next to us asks ”Søren Mørk?” and it turns out to be Christian Dalager and Trine Rahbek whom I’ve never met before. I’ve been reading Dalagers blog for some time and strangely enough I just added him as a contact on flickr yesterday morning, and then we end up at the same tapas bar that evening and because of imity, we ended up talking and having fun for a couple of hours together.
This is a wonderful example of a technology that mixes what goes on in your online life with your offline presence; it truly takes the social networking online offline. Most online activities have relations to offline things and the other way around, which is why we should not distinguish so much between on and offline.
To my mind, the radically unexpected popularity of SMS is one of the more thought-provoking (new) media developments. The graph above (based on stats from the National IT and Telecom Agency) shows continuous SMS growth and no signs of the development slowing down (2006 is an estimate).
Futurology can be silly, but prediction is a component of (some) solid science. So here’s a question: When will this growth end, either because the demand is saturated or because other technologies replace texting? My hunch: The growth won’t seriously slow down for the next three years.
What do you think?
Researcher from the Inc group has taken the initiative to form a research project that will deliver location dependent information to travellers inside Kastrup Airport. More than 10.000 people are expected to try the services in a grand-scale roll out. Key research questions are to identify the services, that people will appriciate, and to investigate peoples attitudes towards being tracked inside buildings. One of the services developed will be a personal gate-caller, that guides visitors to their gate, once it is time to board, taking into account walking distances etc. Key technology are semi-active RFID´s, Blue Tooth tracking, speech interfaces and mobile devices. The project has a total budget of 13 million danish kroner and will run for 3 years. It is supported by Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation.
Scott Wade is a cartoonist who draws on dirty windshields. Pretty innovative Communication, I’d say. Via.
