Digital concierge on the move (Part 1) : personal travel assistant for tourists

• Main Author: Lai, Lysia Huimin
• Other Authors: A S Madhukumar
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Computer systems organization::Computer system implementation
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/36273
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

As technology improves rapidly these days, more mobile phones are being equipped with advance capabilities which functions with PC-like functionalities and termed as Smart phones. With the high influx of Smart phones in the mobile phone market, more people come into possession of such Smart phones, which makes them suitable for developing a digital personal travel assistant for tourists or even locals. The purpose of this report is to describe the selection of a suitable development platform and discuss the development and implementation of a digital personal travel assistant as a mobile application. This mobile application contains useful information and features to tourists who may not know much about Singapore and may also be of use to locals. As certain mobile phones are unable to run Java ME applications, the mobile web application was also developed to allow users of these phones to access similar information on the internet. This mobile web application also complements the mobile application with a wider range of information and allows users to download the mobile application. The mobile application includes functionalities that differentiate itself from those in the market. Besides basic information that users will need, the mobile application also includes a travel guide, which provides travel directions to users, as well as locating attractions, dining places and shopping that are near the user. Limitations such as different phones running on different Operating Systems may pose certain problems due to some compatibility issues. Affected functionalities require specific solutions to be developed to avoid these problems. Despite the above mentioned issue, the Java ME application still proves to be well suitable for use as a digital personal travel assistant on various platforms and the development of a mobile application for Smart phones would be a convenient and portable source of information for users.