Mobile Computing

The first session in Mobile Computing was about the Heritage 2.0 project based in Belgium by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Flemish Institute for Cultural Heritage, Belgium. The two main aims of the projects was to build a 'communication layer' on top of existing heritage databases and to distribute this content on mobile devices in Flanders. 

They decided to bring in some international experts in to find out about the issues of mobile heritage presentation - and the outcome was that Flanders was not ready for handheld devices. The project could open up heritage to a larger audience, though the experts concluded that they should focus on content and not just use PDAs for the sake of it.

In the following presentation our fellow countryman Tom Pert from the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW) showed some of the GPS-based handhelds projects he has been working on for the last couple of years. 

In 2005 he built an e-trail for Ruthin using some customised GIS software and had some input from local Welsh Baccalaureate students for content design (which was mainly text and images). 

Due to the success of the project he has won funding for another project in Blaenafon, which launches on the 18th April. I'm looking forward to testing these devices, which have predefined zones that trigger (or stop) media files depending on your location. He also mentioned the possibilities of using KML with Google Maps on your mobile.