Fol­low­ing my post yes­ter­day about increased inter­ac­tion with your envi­ron­ment, the city of Van­cou­ver is “test­ing how mobile devices can be used to cre­ate a new expe­ri­ence of a city”: Mobile MUSE (Media-rich Urban Shared Expe­ri­ence).

It’s 2010 in Van­cou­ver. Tourists throng the streets, using hand-held devices to immerse them­selves in the his­tory and the attrac­tions of the world’s pre­em­i­nent dig­i­tal city.

As they walk, infor­ma­tion about their sur­round­ings — spon­sored by, say, Star­bucks — down­loads to their devices, which are sim­i­lar to today’s PDAs.

Simul­ta­ne­ously, they use the built-in high-definition video and still cam­eras, and voice recorders to cre­ate their own mem­o­ries of the city.

Off goes a post­card to an aunt in Tai­wan, a voice­mail to a col­league in Barcelona, the record­ing of a street musi­cian to the kids in Sao Paulo.

Accord­ing to Brian Lin at the Uni­veristy of British Colum­bia,

MUSE aims to lever­age Vancouver’s cul­tural, indus­trial and tech­no­log­i­cal advan­tages — not to men­tion the 2010 Olympics — to make the city a mecca for context-aware con­tent deliv­ery.… One of the MUSE sub-project teams is already work­ing on improv­ing audio tours at UBC’s Museum of Anthro­pol­ogy, while another is design­ing a high-tech her­itage scav­enger hunt in Chi­na­town, to be unveiled dur­ing next year’s dragon boat fes­ti­val at Sci­ence World.…Clues relat­ing to Chi­na­town cul­ture are sent to play­ers’ cell phones and points are given when they reach the cor­rect location.

[Also,] a spe­cial $297,000 project has been approved through MUSE aimed at increas­ing youth voter par­tic­i­pa­tion in the upcom­ing May provin­cial elec­tion. The project will involve stu­dents and engage them through inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ences such as vot­ing on impor­tant social ques­tions through their own mobile devices, and see­ing first-hand the impact of their votes.

By com­bin­ing mobil­ity, time and per­son­al­i­sa­tion, these appli­ca­tions bring rel­e­vant and use­ful infor­ma­tion that will enhance the user’s expe­ri­ence. “Par­tic­i­pa­tory tourism”, trea­sure hunt games and vot­ing are nat­ural choices for the city of Vancouver.

Tak­ing the con­cept a bit fur­ther, one could adapt best­selling books and movies into a mobile and par­tic­i­pa­tory tourism expe­ri­ence. For instance, with over 17 mil­lion copies sold, the “The Da Vinci Code gen­er­ated a lot of inter­est in the Lou­vre Museum and other mon­u­ments in and around Paris. Its sis­ter novel Angels & Demons unfolds in Rome. Now imag­ine walk­ing around either city learn­ing more about the sites described in the book. Even bet­ter, how about down­load­ing chap­ters of the book as you fol­low the path of the pro­tag­o­nist? This could be a whole new way to read a book … you would actu­ally expe­ri­ence it! As you approach mon­u­ments you would get the next chap­ter, which you would read or even lis­ten to, if it were pod­casted.

Tak­ing this even fur­ther, a gam­ing aspect could be added to increase the adren­a­line, with points added to uncov­er­ing clues, mak­ing cor­rect moves and inter­act­ing with peo­ple … think of Michael Dou­glas in the movie “The Game”. The recip­i­ent of a “game” voucher from CRS, Con­sumer Recre­ation Ser­vices, he scram­bles around town as he uncov­ers clues that will save him … it’s quite a thrill. Now imag­ine being the pro­tag­o­nist, uncov­er­ing clues and inter­act­ing with your envi­ron­ment and peo­ple in order to uncover a story. In other words, a scav­enger or trea­sure hunt with a com­pelling storyline.

Tech­no­rati Tags: mobile, rfid, games, tourism