Tourism Office

This week one of the most important national fairs has started in Madrid, both in terms of budget, number and size of exhibitors, and public attendance: the FITUR 2014 tourism fair.

In it, the innovation center of the Balearic Islands, about which we did a report on our sister blog GenbetaDev, has shown the current version of its virtual touch point for tourist information: Tourism Office.

Depth and breadth of information

Seeing a Pixel Sense table in these times is already something striking for every good Geek worth his s alt.Bearing in mind that it's a dead-end technology, far surpassed by current hardware capable of running Windows 8 for a fraction of the previous cost.

Even so, the Tourism Office runs on two of these tactile tables, inviting you to play with your fingers on a huge map (Bing) of the Balearic archipelago, where first What we have all done is the magnifying gesture – with two hands - to look for a place of interest in Mallorca.

From there, we can go selecting and obtaining, in a very dynamic way, all kinds of tourist information through a system similar to that of layers, but much more elaborate and, above all, deep.

The volume of information is surprisingly high, something that most tourism applications sin about, and I could have spent hours diving into the data setthat has been provided by the government of the islands.

In addition, I can store all the results – such as the places, routes that I have painted on the map, monuments, history, etc. – in a shopping cart. Which I can then send to myself by email, take it with me on a flash drive or access the content later through a Bidi code.

That is, with this tourist information point, it has been possible to verify in the 2013 version, that it is not necessary to print catalogs on paper except for collectorsof the same ones that swarm so much at these fairs.

An excellent user experience

Another key feature is the excellent user experience. The app's response on Pixel Sense tables is as good as you'd expect. Even on TVs with a touch frame, where a version for Windows 8 runs, also movement and commands have fast and accurate feedback.

But where this application wins many integers is in the design of the tactile and graphic environment (the user interface) that more than complies with a simplicity that does not prevent us from being able to manage the large volume of information that is cataloged and ready to be consumed.

The use of touch capabilities has also been very well implemented in both hardware devices and operating systems (Win7 and Win8), making it very natural for me to perform search and storage of the information.

Moreover, considering that all data is stored in Windows Azure, the Microsoft Cloud, the speed of data recovery the information has been very good. And even more with the difficulties presented by Wi-Fi communications in fairs of this size.

Conclusions

The Windows 8 Store needs apps of this quality and depth.

I have finally found a product that exploits the capabilities of Windows 8 devices, and that makes advanced use of the visual language of ModernUI, making it easy to do something complex such as consuming the tourist information offered by the archipelago of the Balearic Islands – which is of an enormous volume.

It's also important to note that this app isn't published in the Windows Store yet And that it's basically an excellent demonstrator technology of the possibilities of both Windows as an operating system, as well as the touch devices on which it works.

Although negotiations are already underway to implement a commercial product in places like Barcelona, ​​Portugal, etc. And sooner or later it will reach our touch devices.

"More information | Microsoft Innovation Center Tourism Technologies In GenbetaDev | The MICTT helps companies, entrepreneurs and students to develop innovative solutions. Interview with Juan Manuel Servera."