Summary of End of Award Report

Summary

'The GUIDE Project: Context-Sensitive Mobile Multimedia Support for City Visitors', an EPSRC funded research project (GR/L 05280), ran from 1st April 1997 to 31st July 1999 and was a joint initiative involving the Computing Department at Lancaster University and Lancaster City Council. The overall aim of the GUIDE project was to investigate the provision of context-sensitive mobile multimedia computing support for city visitors. In essence, the goal was to develop a number of hand-portable multimedia end-systems that would provide information to visitors as they navigated an appropriately networked city. The end-systems were to be context-sensitive, i.e. they were to have knowledge of their users and of their environment including, most importantly, their physical location. This information was to be used to tailor the system's behaviour in order to provide users with an intelligent visitor guide. The project was, we believe, a major success with the following significant results:
 

• a set of validated requirements for context-sensitive tourist applications

•  the creation of a unique test-bed for research into ubiquitous computing

• the design and implementation of an information model for context-sensitive applications

• the design and implementation of a suite of protocols for disseminating web-based information using broadcast cycles

• the design, implementation and evaluation of a state-of-the-art context-sensitive application.

The GUIDE project has disseminated these results widely through both standard academic channels and, more unusually for a research project, through a range of popular media.  In addition to academic journals and conferences GUIDE has also been featured in newspaper articles, radio and television features.  These have included local radio and television (BBC Radio Lancashire, The Bay Radio, BBC North-West Tonight) and local and national newspapers (The Lancaster Guardian, The Lancaster Citizen, The Visitor, The Sun Newspaper).  In addition, the project has also featured on the BBC’s Tomorrows World+ science programme.

For further information on The GUIDE Project, please contact Dr. Nigel Davies at the address given below, or by email at nigel@comp.lancs.ac.uk