A new European application, with Greek participation, turns smartphones and tablets into personal interactive museum guides
Thanks to a new application, which has already been successfully tested at the Acropolis Museum, visitors will in the future be able to use their mobile devices ("smartphones" and tablets) to enjoy an interactive and personalized museum tour experience.
The new technology, called CHESS (Cultural-Heritage Experiences through Socio-personal interactions and Storytelling), was developed by French, Greek, British and German researchers, with funding of approximately €2.8 million from the European Union's 7th Framework Programme for Research. It is being officially presented at the Innovation Summit, which will take place in Brussels on 10 and 11 March.
The innovative technology, coordinated by the French company DIGINEXT, uses wearable augmented reality and geolocation technologies to transform the usual passive tour of a museum into an active, personal and interactive cultural experience.
Unlike traditional museum guides, the CHESS app tells each visitor a specific story, focusing on the exhibits most relevant to their interests, with as little or as much detail as they wish. The stories can be enriched with multimedia and 3D games, while in some cases the exhibits “talk” and invite visitors to interact with them.
According to Dr. Maria Roussou, of the University of Athens, the program can revolutionize the way we behave and operate when visiting a museum.
“CHESS aims to enhance and personalize each visitor’s experience, creating a personalized experience that takes into account each visitor’s hobbies and interests. By guiding the visitor to the exhibits that interest them and offering interactive content, such as quizzes and games, we enhance the user experience. This not only benefits the user, but also the museum, which wants its visitors to have the best possible experience and visit again,” said Professor Yiannis Ioannidis, University of Athens.
Last year, CHESS (https://www.chessexperience.eu) was successfully tested at the Acropolis Museum in Athens and the Cite de l'Espace park in Toulouse, France, for more than six months. CHESS was developed in collaboration with seven partners, namely DIGINEXT (France), the University of Athens (Department of Informatics and Telecommunications), the University of Nottingham (UK), the Fraunhofer Institute (Germany), Real Fusio (France), the Acropolis Museum and Cite de l'Espace (France).
The application will be marketed by DIGINEXT, allowing the program to move from the research stage to commercial exploitation in the market, which, according to the program coordinators, will happen in two years. Given that there are approximately 55,000 museums worldwide, there are great prospects for global growth.
P.Drak.
News Room "Profit" with information from the APE - AMU
