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| Archaeologists
and historians uncover the secrets of the past through the physical
traces of people’s presence (e.g. artifacts) and the physical
adaptation of the environment (e.g. patterns of erosion). This
physical evidence gives a sense of what happened in these contexts
and why. As ubiquitous computing devices become embedded in the
environment, we have a unique opportunity to add new layers of
meaning to the physical evidence of presence, activity, and change.
We have begun to develop an enhanced mobile tour for prospective
students, alumni, and other visitors to the Cornell University
Campus. Every department in Cornell has hidden treasures –
some completed years ago and some being created at this very moment.
The goal is to provide an anytime, anywhere cell phone-based tour
guide to students and visitors so that they may uncover the past
and emerging treasures of Cornell. We aim to give a new voice,
a digital impression, to the physical constructs of bricks and
mortar. |
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Our
approach is to develop a human interface for touring Cornell by
pushing location data (maps, directions and multimedia) to mobile
phones. Using location API (A-GPS) for location retrieval and
GPS based pop-ups about places of interest, we can deliver maps,
text, images and video to users with any kind of cell phone, with
or without GPS capabilities.
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Prospective students or guests touring the campus could use their
mobile phone to learn about things such as the Kinematic Models
Collection at Duffield Hall, the particle accelerators underneath
Robison Alumni Field, the Gilbert Mastodon at the Paleontological
Research Institution and Snee Hall, or Ezra Cornell’s historic
telegraph machine hidden somewhere on campus under lock and key.
While all of this information could be made available from a Cornell
web site, accessing information in this way is devoid of the contextual
information that brings the information to life. Making this information
simultaneously available and organized by the physical surroundings
of Cornell adds dimensionality and brings the information back
into context.
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| Participants:
Geri Gay, Helene Hembrooke, Kirsten Boehner, Jenn Thom-Santelli,
Quaseer Mujawar, Brian Lim, Twisham Sattam Saha, Chih-Yu Hsieh,
and Riki Cullinford. |
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