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Kiosks make debut at Democratic, Republican national conventions

Voter.com's kiosks were a big hit with delegates and media at both the Republican and Democratic national conventions, pointing to a bright future for informational kiosks at major political events

April 15, 2002 by

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Balloons raining from the rafters, fiery speeches, and waves of thunderous applause are just part of the noisy spectacle that makes up political conventions.

"It's kind of like being in the eye of the storm¾honestly," said Michael Bustamante, communication director of Voter.com, an independent, bipartisan Web site for political information. "There's so much information swirling about you, it's very difficult to try to keep up with everything that's going on."

Voter.com furnished Web-enabled kiosks at both the 2000 Republic and Democratic conventions.

"This is a first and Voter.com is pleased to be the one to be bringing it to the convention-goers," Bustamante said.

Juno, Yahoo and iVillage partnered with Voter.com on the project, along with smart card developer CardLogixand KDS Pixel Touxh Inc., a kiosk and touchscreen developer based in Ontario, Calif.    

Convention delegates and media members were able to access the Internet through kiosks set up at both parties' convention sites. In Los Angeles, kiosks were also set up at Democratic convention delegate hotels.

In Philadelphia, Voter.com placed 10 Pixel Touch kiosks and 35 computer terminals for Web surfing at the Republican convention. Democrats had access to the same 10 kiosks along with 80 additional units.

Smart card technology

Smart cards were used to access the machines. The cards look like a simple piece of plastic the size of a credit card, but have a semiconductor chip embedded in them.

"It looks like an ATM card, without the magnetic stripe," said Bruce Ross, vice president of marketing CardLogix, based in Irvine, Calif.

Inside the chip is information personalized to each user, so users don't need to input a name and password each time the user logs on. The result was a quick and painless trip to the Internet on the bustling convention floor.

Affirmative votes

At the Republican convention, kiosks were placed only at the convention site, Bustamante said.

Republicans may have used fewer kiosks, but that doesn't mean they weren't popular with GOP delegates. Jim Stewart can vouch for that.

Stewart, president of Pixel Touch, installed the machines at the Republican convention.

"Once the kiosks were up and running, I was pleasantly surprised to see people actually come up to them and go to the news sites," Stewart said. "The day it was up there, the Concorde crashed. Instead of sitting down with a dirty newspaper, (people) could just come to this thing and get the latest information."

KDS Pixel Touch manufactures five custom kiosk designs. For the conventions, the company modified its Advertiser kiosk, a statuesque unit with a 15-inch CRT display and backlight signage.

Strong suits

Robed in a royal blue and a powder-coat finish, the kiosk enclosures were made of a durable metal material. Beneath the Voter.com logo on top, designers placed a picture of the Capitol building and an overlay graphic specifying the convention name.

"People can bang it, lean on it, whatever, and it's not going to hurt," Stewart said.

The kiosk featured a Microtouch capacitive touchscreen with a 15-inch LCD display, an Intel Pentium III 550 PC configured with a T1 high-speed Internet connection and a 64-megabyte hard drive.

That software used was called Surf Touch 4.0.

Developed by Pixel Touch, Surf Touch is a kiosk control program that can be used as a touchscreen Web browser. During the conventions, Surf Touch ensured that only Card Logix smart cards issued by Voter.com cleared a path to the Internet. The convention kiosks were built without keyboards, but Surf Touch offered a compromise: a pop-up version complete with scroll bar that appears on the touchscreen.

The convention kiosks did not have telephone support, but Surf Touch makes speed dialing from a Web page possible, Stewart said. An icon of a telephone can be programmed on a Web page and feature a special hyperlink.

A kiosk visitor hungry for Italian and scouting restaurants in the area could simply touch the phone and it would ring at the restaurant. "The same thing for getting a taxi," Stewart said. "If you want to get a taxi, just press the taxi button."

More on smart cards

Using smart cards for kiosk Web browsing was a smart move, Ross believes, especially under the high profile spotlight of a national convention. But smart cards have a long way to go to fully realize their capabilities.

"Even though there's been millions and millions of smart cards shipped in the U.S., most people have not had the experience of using one. They're more of an information tool than anything else.

"It's actually probably a step in the right direction," Ross added. "It's a small step because I think the public has to understand what these things are all about and some of the capabilities and the ease of getting information."

Stewart shares Ross' optimism.

"I've been doing this stuff for about 10 years now," he said. "With the Internet opening up, it has really legitimized multimedia kiosks because no longer does everything have to be local. The time is approaching very quickly where these types of machines can be extremely powerful."