A multimedia guidebook implementation using a bluetooth wireless information point network

This paper describes the implementation of a Bluetooth Village Guide Book (VGB) scenario for use in the Kelvin Grove Urban Village located in Brisbane, Australia. An Information Point Station Network (IPSN) was developed, along with software for two types of mobile computing devices. The implementation consists of several Information Point Stations (IPSs) placed at locations of significance, with access to information items on a centralized server. Once a user is registered on the network, he/she is given the opportunity to experience context and eventually user aware information on demand and in various multimedia formats. These information items are selected by the user, either by way of a menu system appearing on their mobile computing device or a more intuitive pointer-tag system. Information items are then 'beamed' to the user's mobile computing device for the user to view. The implementation was found to be successful and was tested with multiple users accessing information items from a given IPS as well as multiple IPSs attached to the centralized server. A multimedia guidebook communications protocol was also developed to overcome the varying Bluetooth capabilities of a range of mobile computing devices. The future work includes further developing the VBG software to include a user-registration system and other features.