February 27, 2009
Tech-savvy 'A-Hole' surprise at the NY Visitor Center
Usman Chaudhary today joins NewYorkology’s team of correspondents. He’s a New Jersey-based web developer and frequent New York City visitor and his personal blog can be found at whoisusman.com. He’s just talked to one of the developers — and given a test run — of the new software at NYC & Co.’s official Midtown tourism center.
 Not a lot of cities would have the guts to feature “A-HOLE” in their official tourism centers.
But this is New York City. And that’s what can happen when you install new technology,
giving over some control to the masses.
As the economy slows, New York City is still spending money to keep tourism revenue near record levels. One example can be found in the NY Visitor Information Center — located on 7th Avenue between 52nd and 53rd streets — where a test of the new interactive tables resulted in a few surprises.
Visitors to the center begin by picking up circular discs with unique patterns and placing them on one of three interactive map tables. The tables display a circular menu, allowing users to choose between 12 options encompassing arts, entertainment, dining, hotels, and something called “NYC photos,” which provided much entertainment (more about that later.)
When an option is picked, destinations are displayed around the current location, which can be repositioned by sliding a finger iPhone-style across the glass. Though the selection criteria for establishments wasn’t stated anywhere, the table did show dozens of restaurants and all major hotels.
Destinations can be e-mailed, text messaged, or “saved to the disc” - which then allows users to print an itinerary at the printing station. After trying all these options, I was left with a list of locations and addresses but not real directions. Incorporating public transportation suggestions. (Perhaps a list of nearby subway lines for each location) into the resulting printout would have been nice.)
The “NYC Photos” option is connected to an unfiltered Flickr feed of location-tagged photos. One of the first pictures to appear was the photograph of a New York Post cover about Alex Rodriguez … the one with the “A-HOLE” headline. Combined with many personal snapshots, these unexpected photos made made it far more interesting than a canned selection of normal NYC-themed images.
The technology behind the tables was developed entirely in New York by the two companies that won NYC & Co.’s design competition: WXY Architecture and Local Projects, the latter of which also built the StoryCorps booth that NPR listeners might be familiar with.
NewYorkology spoke with Jake Barton from Local Projects, who explained that the tables use two cameras: one to read the code on the discs and another to track finger movements. Describing this concept as cutting-edge, he said it’s the disc-recognition technology that made it unique.
The tables are indeed fun to play with and very user-friendly, but most tech-savvy visitors can find far more information on their own through the Internet prior to their arrivals. Those who didn’t plan everything out or need to find something to do immediately will find them useful. If you’re a geek, the tables are worth checking out; it’s very likely that some form of this technology will one day be found everywhere organizations have a need to display vast amounts of information to visitors.
Picture credits: Usman Chaudhary.
February 27, 2009 10:08 AM in Cheap Stuff, Maps, Midtown, Techology
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