Virtual information towers-a metaphor for intuitive, location-aware information access in a mobile environment

Abstract

Introduces virtual information towers (VITs) as a concept for presenting and accessing location-aware information with mobile clients. A VIT is a means of structuring location-aware information, which is assigned to a certain geographical position while having a certain area of visibility. A user equipped with a mobile, wearable computer has access to the VITs which are "visible" from his/her current location. We describe the architecture and protocols of a system which allows its users to create VITs and to access the information on them using Internet mechanisms. We have implemented a prototype of this system and a VIT client for a wearable computer, and we present some aspects of this implementation.