[photopress:great_wall_flags_1_2.jpg,full,alignright]It is planned that by the time the 2008 Olympic Games begin in China, a new type of mobile computer program will help tourists make themselves understood to locals. The software is an electronic guidebook and translation program, but also a networked information system for navigating Beijing.
The software, installed on a mobile device such as a cell phone or PDA, lets you do things like ask for directions, order food, look for nearby sightseeing attractions and give directions to a taxi driver without speaking or understanding a word of Chinese via the display or with voice instructions.
The Compass 2008 is a joint project between German and Chinese partners. On the German end, the Deutsche Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz (DFKI, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence), the Frauenhofer Institut ISST and Deutsche Telekom Laboratories joined together as partners.
On the Chinese end, the project was supervised by CAPINFO, which has as its research partner the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Test users said they needed neither manuals nor time to get familiar with the service which is wonderful. The service runs on mobile devices (e.g. T-Mobile MDA Pro, PDA), laptops and PCs and has an intuitive interface.
The project, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, began on October 1, 2004. The integration of the information services developed into the technological infrastructure of the Olympic Games will be complete in the summer of 2007.
What a marvelous idea.
Source: World IT Report