News

Student envisions personal kiosks users can wear

October 30, 2003

LONDON -- Imagine a world where Web services are sold like fruit and vegetables on the street, where digital information is so everyday that you just consume it like food or drink.

According to a news report on BBCNews, experiments done by a graduate researcher at London's Royal College of Art shows this might be what people actually want.

Indri Tulusancollaborated with CitySpace, a company responsible for putting Internet kiosks on London streets. She is investigating how effective these kiosks are and is comparing them with forms of technology accessed in the streets of other countries, the report said.

Tulusan took the idea of how people already interact on the streets -- shopping, having conversations -- and developed the idea of throwing in technology.

"I looked at ways of having people at the center of the infrastructure where digital services could be offered like fruit and vegetables," she said in the report.

She sees this as providing a much more personal and fluid service than static Internet cafes or Web access points. Tulusan calls the kiosk "Webpacker."

The concept is simple. It's a touchscreen computer on a strap so users can attach it to themselves and walk around with it, linked to a wireless network.