Information Technology Reference
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to help travelers to plan their trip. Similarly, a sophisticated map-based user
interface is proposed to allow browsing the location tagged photos [15].
LocoBlog [3] is a space-time photo travel blogging service. Unlike
traditional travel blogs, the entries are not only displayed linearly by time,
they are also displayed spatially, allowing the viewer to get a greater sense
of the journey. Another related research [10] has proposed an approach for
integrating context-aware computing to a mobile travel assistant. A compact
structure called User Task Model provides an explicit record of activities
and intentions.
An interactive system [1] has demonstrated a graphic visualization of
travel itinerary with emphasis on time and time zones. The travel system
covers search aspects by supporting collaborative World Wide Web brows-
ing and document creation with multiple complementary views of the trip.
The system allows collaborative editing via any of the resources.
Web Travel Support Engine [14] was introduced to recommend traveling
information to users and considering users' interests by applying the rein-
forcement theory to analyze the user behavior and study user interests. The
agent technology used for the Personal Travel Market [9] has three types
of agents, Personal Travel Agent, Travel Broker Agent, and Travel Service
Agent, are collaborated to resolve users' travel requirements. The Virtual
Travel Agent System [2] is built on the technology of a multiagent informa-
tion system and the use of the semantic Web that can effectively organize
information and service resources. A related system [13] applied on this topic
with ontology that is more specific to tourism, package planning, recom-
mendation, scheduling to tourist. An e-tourism scenario [5] has introduced
a recommender engine that extents the use of semantics and ontology in the
tourism applicative domain.
A research of a mobile game, alien revolt is discussed by De Souza e Silva
[7]. This famous java cell phone game is very popular in Brazil. Users equip
cell phones with location awareness components and can play games in cites
just like they are played on battlefields. In the environment of this game,
alien revolt, users can play two kinds of roles, alien hacker and human war-
riors. With cell phones and GPS components, users can enter various gaming
stages in different locations.
The authors also point out that the level of mobile devices in Brazil is not
high enough to give high growth to this game. High price and low acces-
sibility do not make Brazil a good environment to develop mobile games.
If we want mobile games with location awareness mechanism to be highly
accepted by users, the mobile products distribution on the market will have
to play an important part.
An interesting issue of location-based games was proposed by Das and
Rose [6]. Uncertainty is the major issue in this research. Survival games are
very suitable for participants with handheld or wearable sensors and inter-
faces. Such games are really convenient and exciting. Users need only carry
mobile devices and no weaponry to experience battle with no fatigue.
