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Yule Heibel's Library tagged tourism →  View Popular

28 Apr 08

Multimedia guide helps tourists track down remains of Berlin Wall with GPS - MIT Tech Review

- It's too bad this isn't a guide that you can download, and instead is a guide / gadget that you have to rent. "The hand-sized minicomputer, to be introduced May 1, is linked to global positioning satellites mapping the wall's former path."

The underlying idea could be great -- downloadable walking tour guide, with many enriched features (interviews, newsclips, etc.). But not if it means renting the actual gadget, without some sort of online accessible aspect.

www.technologyreview.com/...20684 - Preview

mit_techreview tourism guide berlin berlin_wall

  • The hand-sized minicomputer, to be introduced May 1, is linked to global positioning satellites mapping the wall's former path.


    Boasting a headset and a touch-screen, it features a colorful map of the city that can zoom in and out, showing the users where they are. The route of the former barrier between East and West Germany is marked in red while a yellow line guides the visitor from one wall section to the next, calculating the distances via GPS in meters.

  • The city government commissioned the multimedia guide as part of a bigger project to improve existing memorials to the wall, most of which were torn down after Communist East Germany collapsed and the border was opened in 1989. The project is scheduled for completion by Aug. 13, 2011, the 50th anniversary of the wall's construction.


    Apart from guiding tourists from one wall memorial to the next -- among them the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie and the mural-covered East Side Gallery -- the digital assistant gives information about 22 historically significant spots along the wall's route.

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29 Aug 06

Cruise-ship business booming

  • letter-to-the-editor response re. Alaskan tax on cruise ship passengers - lampertina on 2006-08-29
  • I'm curious why the article referred to the cruise ship industry as "beleaguered."
    • this is an excellent point -- the local media always like to play up the "little red riding hood" complex (this is my thesis that it was only the wolf that made LRRH significant; without the wolf, who would care 2-cents about L'il Hood? So, you need the wolf to make people care... - on 2006-08-29
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