City’s ‘Urban Interaction Hotspots’ will provide maps and other information about the city to passing pedestrians.

You’ve probably noticed them by now. Called ‘Urban Interaction Hotspots,’ one of the stocky, futuristic statues with monitors has sprung-up on Rotuaari and there’s another in the market square. There are twelve examples of the new technological street furniture in Oulu’s streets.

They may look space age and they certainly make it difficult to get lost. According to the Digital Signage Association, each of these ‘Icon57 Units’ (so-called because they’re 57 inches in length) is equipped with touch screen technology, a hidden loud speaker, a PC, internet and various censors which tell it when a possibly lost pedestrian is nearby.

The units will offer a UBI Channel and a UBI Portal. The Channel will be used for communication purposes by the City of Oulu. The Portal will consist of webpages which can be browsed using touch-screen technology. This will include Google Map, various multimedia items and an information service called ‘Oulu Today.’ The units will host facial recognition software which allow them to move from being ‘passive’ to active’ status.

Not all of the hotspots will provide the same services, however. And the designers have pre-empted the frustration that this might cause. According to the Digital Signage Association:

‘The third item on the displays is a mobile application window which can be used with a mobile device. After a user registers himself, he will receive a downloadable program to his mobile phone, and a UBI Jewel that includes an RFID identifier. By touching the NFC/RFID reader of the display with the UBI Jewel, the user can "take over" the display and receive information to the mobile program on what kinds of services are available in that certain HotSpot.’

The Icon57 units will be tested until the end of August to collect data on how well they’ve worked, how popular they’ve been and the experiences of the users.