audio guide app in livecode?

[Pete]

That sounds perfectly adequate for the job, just not as sexy as a smartphone
app!
Pete
Molly's Revenge <http://www.mollysrevenge.com>




On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 1:38 PM, Peter M. Brigham, MD <pmbrig at gmail.com>wrote:

> I was at a museum in the Boston area a while back and they had an
> interesting solution. You call a number on your phone, and the audio menu
> invites you to enter a number (posted next to each picture), and then you
> hear the commentary on that particular picture. Simple, low-tech, doesn't
> even require a smart phone. Only requires a cellular phone connection, which
> might be a deal-killer for larger museums with internal rooms that are out
> of cellular signal range. Still, I thought it was pretty clever.
>
> -- Peter
>
> Peter M. Brigham
> pmbrig at gmail.com
> http://home.comcast.net/~pmbrig
>
> On Sep 8, 2011, at 4:05 PM, Pete wrote:
>
> > It does sound very simple on the face of it, which begs the question of
> why
> > nobody has implemented this much cheaper solution already?  Perhaps
> museums,
> > being very traditional institutions, lag behind technology developments?
>  As
> > I recall, I've always had to pay for this type of guide so perhaps the
> > museums make money on them, or perhaps they are just recouping the costs
> of
> > the equipment, who knows.
> >
> > I'd think an Android phone (I have one) would be more than capable of
> doing
> > this, as would an iPhone.  Storage might be an issue since Android phones
> > tend not have a huge amount of SD storage available, maybe 16megs, but
> that
> > should be room for a lot of mp3 files.
> >
> > The interesting thing is to ponder on how to charge for this.  I could
> see a
> > situation where some clever person develops a single app that can deal
> with
> > as many museums as want to subscribe to the service.  Maybe the app is
> free
> > but you pay to download guides to different museums with the payment
> being
> > split between the museum and the application developer?  No need for
> wifi,
> > the phone data service can take care of the download.  No doubt Apple
> would
> > throw up on including the ability to buy the guide from within the
> > application though.
> >
> > I think you may be on to a very nice business opportunity here Peter!
> >
> > Pete
> > Molly's Revenge <http://www.mollysrevenge.com>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Peter Alcibiades <
> > palcibiades-first at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >> The way the audioguide business works is, you have a special museum type
> >> handset.  This costs hundreds of dollars to buy, but what it consists of
> is
> >> a keypad, tiny lcd screen and a phone type speaker.
> >>
> >> The user goes around the museum and sees large numbers attached to
> exhibits
> >> or freestanding.  He/she then hits the number, and the track plays.
> >>
> >> Yes, that is really it.  And yes, they cost hundreds each.  They come
> with
> >> a
> >> charging rack typically so you can plug them in to recharge overnight,
> and
> >> they have a 512Mb compact flash card.
> >>
> >> Then you get software with them.  The way this works is very nice.  The
> >> software is registered to the individual machine you first install it
> on.
> >> Want another machine?  Pay.  This software uploads the tracks you have
> >> recorded into the handsets.  What you do is load one handset, the
> master,
> >> and then this propogates to all the others.  The makers of this software
> do
> >> not seem to have thought of virtual machines, because if you install on
> one
> >> of these, you can put it all over the place in as many machines as you
> >> like.
> >> Well, there you go.
> >>
> >> My first inclination, when confronted with this, was to say what is
> wrong
> >> with cheap mp3 players?  Well, this is where it gets interesting.  You
> get
> >> grants for this stuff as a charity and museum.  The grants are based on
> the
> >> going rate, which is hugely expensive, because no-one does this stuff
> >> themselves, they get consultants in  to do it all for them.  A museum,
> >> which
> >> will be state run of course in Europe, can easily spend $100k or so to
> have
> >> 50+ handsets and the right tracks recorded by professional actors.
> >>
> >> Into this surreal world comes Android.  The thing about android phones
> is
> >> they can run apps.  It looks to your usual, what is the word,
> adventurous
> >> user?  asi if anyone with half a brain could make an app that as J says,
> >> only needs to play a track when a number is pressed.  Why, I am asking
> >> myself, should this cost more than about £200 including the mobile
> >> non-profit Livecode purchase?  Some cheap machine they have lying
> around,
> >> and there's a usb port to host it on.  What more do you need?
> >>
> >> So, I'm on the point of saying to the museum, buy me the livecode
> android
> >> version, and away we go.  Glad to hear everyone saying in tones very
> like
> >> my
> >> own, that this is not rocket science, more like an afternoon.  But given
> >> pause by the fact that I have never knowingly seen an android phone, so
> >> maybe developing an app for one from scratch is a little courageous?
> >>
> >> If any of you guys have a spare afternoon, I think the museum market is
> >> quite interesting.
> >>
> >> Sometime if there is a long rainy afternoon, I'll tell you about the
> even
> >> more surreal world of museum databases and catalogue software....  Now
> if
> >> you think audioguides are a turnup for the books, wait till you hear
> about
> >> catalogs....
> >>
> >> Peter
> >>
> >> --
> >> View this message in context:
> >>
> http://runtime-revolution.278305.n4.nabble.com/audio-guide-app-in-livecode-tp3797632p3799715.html
> >> Sent from the Revolution - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> >>
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