Mobile Bristol Toolkit

Freshly launched, Mobile Bristol provides an experimental test-bed for technology and user value research in pervasive mobile media.

HP Labs researchers and their partners from Bristol University developed a set of software tools that can place media files, such as sounds and images, in a location to blend in and augment a physical area. Associated software, loaded on to HP iPAQ handheld computers equipped with GPS satellite positioning, allows the user to access automatically the different media files as they move from place to place.

The system is made of an authoring tool to place the files and iPAQ-based client software to access them. The BBC used the Mobile Bristol toolkit during October 2004 to present sound extracts around the harbourside and the old centre of Bristol, which people experienced with HP iPAQs as they walked the route.

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