Context-aware computing for Cultural Tourism – Experiences from the MUSE project

The paper is about making context-aware multimedia content available in museums and archaeological sites. The paper describes a hands-free, sensor augmented, context-aware wearable computer named Whyre, designed within MUSE, a 2000-03 italian research project. The purpose of Whyre is to act as a guide for cultural sites, hiding the technology from the visitors and making accessible through a unified interface many types of multimedia content (e.g. text, images, audiovideo, interactive virtual models, sensor-driven panoramas). Appropriate content is selected based on the user’s context as detected by sensors embedded in the device. Prototypes where demonstrated in two Italian Museums and in the archaeological area of Pompeii. In this paper the system concept is presented, followed by a summary of real world trials.