UBI displays field-tested in Oulu

Twelve interactive screens erected in the centre of town

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By Tapio Mainio
     
      ”With this interactive UBI display you can take a picture of yourself and mail it to your friend”, says student Jenna Moisejeff, advising people how to use the 57-inch touch-screen display located in the Oulu market square.
      The UBI display is a new and unique way to interact in urban environments that does not exist in any other part of the world. It provides residents and tourists alike with an opportunity to access web pages containing information on the services of the City of Oulu, which the user can browse with the touch-screen display.
     
The LCD panel has a camera which activates the display when a person stands in front of it. During the busiest days, the 12 UBI HotSpots installed in the city centre have recorded a total of 4,000 visitors.
      Working as summer trainees, IT students have been trying to persuade passers-by to come and press the slightly daunting and fear-inspiring screens. In addition, guided UBI walks have been arranged by the customer service team of the UBI Programme on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
      ”People of various ages have participated in these walks. They have asked how such displays can benefit people and who actually pays the costs”, Moisejeff notes.
     
The screen display is divided into three parts.
      ”The UBI portal on the right side makes it possible to locate for example restaurants on the map of Oulu, to look at pictures and to read the non-commercial communications of the City of Oulu, as well as news items and bus timetables”, project manager Hannu Kukka explains.
     
A quarter of the upper part of the screen is reserved for commercial advertising by companies, as the installations are owned by the University of Oulu.
      ”The maintenance costs of the UBI infrastructure are covered by advertisements. The centre of the city is a live laboratory in which we are looking at the functionality of communications technology integrated in the environment. The users can also give us new ideas”, Prof. Timo Ojala says.
      Another quarter of the UBI display is a mobile application window for registered users, which can be used with a mobile device.
     
”You can watch pictures from your own mobile phone on the display with your friend, or you can add pictures to the visitors’ own gallery for everyone to see. In addition, you can use the UBI display in order to download the latest bus timetables to your mobile phone”, Kukka suggests.
      In other words, the UBI display serves as a kind of extension or support device to a mobile phone.
      Furthermore, those who do not own a smartphone can actually borrow one from the downtown UBI office in order to test the mobile services available.
      In addition to the University of Oulu, several other Finnish institutes and universities are involved in the UBI Programme.
      The UBI programme is funded by a number of partners, including Nokia, which hardly comes as any surprise.
     
The City of Oulu also wants to keep up its reputation as a high-tech centre.
      The University of Oulu has a large Internet research unit. One of its most significant projects is the UBI programme.
      UBI is an abbreviation of the words Urban Interactions Research Programme, part of the research programme of the University of Oulu.
      The field-test of the UBI Program, coordinated by the University of Oulu, concluded at the end of August.
     

The term ”ubiquitous computing”
became more common at the end of the 1980s.
      It is a name given to the third wave in computing, when information technology is integrated into everyday objects surrounding us.
      These objects can communicate with each other with the help of sensors, identifiers, and mini computers.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 27.8.2009


Links:
  Business Oulu press release - 09.06.2009: The Unique Ubiquitous Oulu Was Released
  Ubiquitous computing (Wikipedia)

TAPIO MAINIO / Helsingin Sanomat
tapio.mainio@hs.fi