By Andrew Liszewski
ipunkt is a personal navigation system designed for places like museums or other large buildings that aren’t always easy to find your way around. When you enter the building you’re assigned a unique ID number and an animated compass will appear around your feet that points toward your destination of choice.
Using sophisticated tracking software the compass will remain with you as you move about the building and will even adapt its size depending on how fast you’re moving. As you get closer to your destination the animated compass will give visual clues letting you know you’re nearby. The system is also able to display additional information through the use of animated text tickers that scroll by when you’re not in motion. If travelling with a group of people the compass can also display where each of your travelling companions are based on their own uniqe ID numbers. So while you may get separated in theory you can never get lost.
While functioning prototypes of the ipunkt have been demonstrated the system currently relies on a projector and mirror system that makes it impractical to implement over an entire building. However it does show promise.
[ipunkt] VIA [We-Make-Money-Not-Art]
