Camineo

The Swiss National Park is a real innovator of new technologies. Developed by the Camineo co-founders, its Webpark guide is indeed the first European multimedia guide for visitors to a natural space.

Since summer 2005, the Swiss National Park has been proposing the mobile guide WebPark to its visitors. Available in 3 languages, it can be rented at the Zernez Park house for one or over several days. The rental is 5 CHF a day or 10 CHF for three days ; a solar charger enables the battery level to be maintained during the whole time of the walk.

With several maps layers and an integrated GPS which shows the user location, WebPark gives navigation assistance for the hiker. But, above all, it is a full information tool about specific fauna and flora of this Alpine zone : multimedia description, maps of the probability of flora and fauna in an area, interactive assistance for species identification…

WebPark has another distinctive feature : it’s communication ability. The GPRS network is used for dumping data between terminals and a server. It is a bidirectional communication tool :

• the Park Rangers can send real-time information to visitors ;
• the visitors can take photos with the built-in camera, personalise their guide and share information with other users.

Intended at first for the visitors, the WebPark application became the daily companion of the rangers who now note their observations on the Pocket PC directly. For that purpose, Camineo developed a set of interfaces to make data input easier. The geographic position of the observer, the date and the hour are automatically noted ; pre-filled forms allow a quick choice of any animals or plants species observed, and to insert a comment.

As soon as the Pocket PC enters a GPRS wireless network covered zone, all the stored information is automatically transmitted to the other rangers and backed-up on the park server.

A communication guide (schema les Echos / Camineo)

---