Mobilising travel information
To achieve this goal, the EU-funded 'TALOS mobile guides' (TMGUIDE) project united three EU institutions. A publisher, an information technology (IT) research centre and an IT business) will be working together over a period of two years. This 'demonstration action' project aims to bring published geographic information to mobile platforms and make the information interactive. Relying on converting existing materials such as static maps and integrating novel geographic content (such as text and images) will provide rich travel guides. TMGUIDE plans to produce a prototype for marketing purposes. Work in the first nine months focused on the content management system (CMS). The publisher's current system restricts information use in other media, so TMGUIDE developed a new CMS. The innovation uses custom markup tags specifying content to allow republishing of existing content to various electronic media, including apps and websites. During the same period, the project completed seven deliverables. These include the consortium agreement, market analysis, plus the printing and distribution of project leaflets. An iPhone mobile guide was placed in the App Store ahead of schedule in early 2013. In conjunction with an external partner, the project also finalised its dissemination and market analysis, including feasibility study, in May 2013. TMGUIDE aims to be an ideal technical platform for travel guide apps. It will automatically provide interactive geo-information to mobile users. The project aims to have sold 10 000 apps during 2014.
