Ubiquitous Oulu Offers New Opportunities

18.9.2009

The city of Oulu is again promoting its image as a city of high quality technology. 12 UBI HotSpots are being installed to the city centre of Oulu during June 2009, six of these outdoors and the other six indoors. UBI HotSpots are a part of the UBI (UrBan Interactions) Program which is coordinated by the University of Oulu. The purpose of the UBI Program is to offer new and better services for citizens and travelers. The UBI HotSpots also create new and interesting business opportunities for software companies.

A UBI HotSpot consists of a 57 inch touch screen display and different types of wireless networks. This infrastructure that is being realized in Oulu is something completely new and it has not been done anywhere else in the world. The city of Oulu functions as a prototype city and all of its citizens have the opportunity to test the displays during this summer and express their opinions about them. The opinions and the experiences of the users will be collected and used as a way to improve the ubiquitous city centre in the future.

New technology with new applications

The most visible part of a UBI HotSpot is the UBI display. The display has two modes, passive and interactive. When the facial recognition system of the display does not detect anyone in front of it, it remains in the passive mode and the UBI Channel is shown on the entire screen. As soon as someone stands in front of the display, it transfers into the interactive mode and the screen is divided into three segments. One of the segments is the UBI Channel which decreases from the whole screen into one fourth of it. Another segment is the UBI Portal which takes a half of the display and the third segment is the mobile application window and it also takes one fourth of the display.

Services and business opportunities

 All of these three segments offer services to the citizens and business opportunities to companies. The UBI Channel is used in showing commercial advertisements of companies and non-commercial advertisements and bulletins of the University of Oulu and the city of Oulu. The visibility of the commercial campaigns is very good since the displays are located in central places where plenty of people stroll on a daily basis. The UBI Portal functions with the touch screen display and it allows the user to browse web-based information services, such as a map of Oulu, and to read the latest news and later on even check out an art exhibition. Any website that can be used with a touch screen display can be brought to the UBI Portal.

The segment of the display that offers new business opportunities to companies the most is the mobile application window. The window can be used with a Bluetooth connection and therefore it is completely free for the user. Currently the mobile application window includes applications such as bus timetables, Place Messaging, TV guide and the latest news. However, the opportunities of the mobile application window are basically endless. There could be several new useful and entertaining applications that could be installed into the window. It can be expected that the innovative and inspired technical community of Oulu will develop new services and software for the UBI HotSpots.

The UBI Program strives to build a sustainable operations model which enables the execution of the public service duty, commercial business and the development and maintenance of infrastructure and services in the future. In addition to the University of Oulu, the following are involved in the Program: Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, University of Lapland, Oulu University of Applied Sciences and University of Art and Design Helsinki. The UBI Program is funded by Tekes, European Regional Development Fund, State Provincial Office of Oulu, Council of Oulu Region, City of Oulu, Oulu University of Applied Sciences, Nokia, TeliaSonera, Digia and Sensinode.