IconOne 57-inch outdoor displays installed as urban street furniture
July 5, 2009
KAJAANI, Finland — Twelve UBI (Urban Interactions) HotSpots with Symbicon Ltd.'s Icon57 double-sided outdoor and indoor digital information displays have been installed around the city center of Oulu in Finland.
In the first phase, there are 12 Icon57 outdoor and indoor displays in public buildings and different parts of pedestrian streets and the market area. Icon57 units are all equipped with a touchscreen, integrated PC, hidden loudspeaker, two cameras and an NFC/RFID reader. The HotSpots include access points for WLAN/Wifi, BT (Bluetooth) and WSN (Wireless Sensor Network) networks.
At first, two services are offered on the displays, UBI Channel and UBI Portal. The UBI Channel is used for non-commercial communication of the City of Oulu and its partners and commercial activity (especially of SMEs). The UBI Portal consists of Web pages which the user can browse with the touchscreen display. In the beginning, the Portal includes a service directory based on Google Maps, a multimedia item and "Oulu Today" news service. Using facial recognition, the display can move from the passive status into the interactive status automatically as a user arrives at the display. The user can also activate the screen with an RFID identifier or by touching the screen.
The third item on the displays is a mobile application window which can be used with a mobile device. After a user registers himself he will receive a downloadable program to his mobile phone, and a UBI Jewel that includes an RFID identifier. By touching the NFC/RFID reader of the display with the UBI Jewel, the user can "take over" the display and receive information to the mobile program on what kinds of services are available in that certain HotSpot.
The first installation of Icon57 displays will be tested until the end of August 2009 in a field test to collect research data of the technical functionality of the infrastructure and services and of the experiences of the users.
