Custom Touch Screen Kiosk Gives Tourists Access To Local Sites & Entertainment

The wind and snow are picking up at the end of another winter day in Maine. The Thompson family - on a spur-of-the-moment notion - has driven up from Connecticut for a three-day ski weekend. Unfortunately for them, so have many other families, creating a shortage of hotel vacancies in the resort towns.

Gaining Access To Tourist Information
No problem for the Thompsons. They head over to the local Chamber of Commerce and get some recommendations on hotels. And even though all the tourism workers have long since locked up the offices and headed home, the Thompson family still has access to everything it needs - hotel choices, restaurant locations and hours - even menus.

In the span of a few moments, Mr. Thompson wipes the snow and water off the outdoor touch screen window, touches a few on-screen buttons, (even while wearing his gloves), and is talking to a hotel clerk to reserve a hotel room and a 6:30 p.m. dinner slot.

Custom Kiosk Meets Tourist Needs
This service was provided by a custom kiosk application from Chamber Works, Inc., a systems integrator who specializes in solutions for the travel and tourism industry. Using the durable ThruGlass touchscreen from MicroTouch Systems, Inc., Chamber Works has created more than 30 custom indoor/outdoor kiosks that are used in hotel lobbies, factory-outlet stores, restaurants, and tourist information centers in the northeastern United States.

With Chamber Works' touchscreen kiosks, tourists like the Thompsons can get all the information they need, 24-hours-a-day, rain or shine - or snow, for that matter - through a touch screen that users can touch through a storefront window.

Kiosk Holds More Data Than Flyers
And the kiosk offers more than simple brochures or flyers. "Since it's computer-based, we can offer much more content than previously possible," said Matt Roche, president of Chamber Works. "And since it uses an intuitive touch screen interface, virtually everyone can walk up to it and get what information they need without any training."

According to Roche, there are numerous benefits to the durable touch screen kiosk. "With the ThruGlass design, we can display photos and maps, as well as videos of different locations and sites," he said. "We've also integrated a full-duplex speaker phone, so users can call the different locations that they've seen on the touchscreen display."

How The Technology Works
ThruGlass is MicroTouch's touch screen that's virtually unbreakable and is ideal for just about any harsh environment. With ThruGlass' innovative technology, users never actually touch the sensor - just the durable front surface.

ThruGlass projects a capacitive field from the conducive coating to the non-conductive front surface (e.g., glass, wood, plastic). As the finger, or stylus, approaches the front surface, the projected field recognizes a disturbance. At a calibrated level of disturbance, ThruGlass recognizes a touch. The X,Y coordinate of the touch is then sent from the ThruGlass controller to the PC serial port.

The ThruGlass sensor resides safely behind up to an inch of glass, plastic, Lexan®, wood - or any conductive surface. This eliminates worries about weather, vandals or contaminants. What's more, users can input touches with gloved fingers, tools, pointers, or other styluses.

Kiosks Are An Interactive Interface
With Chamber Works' ThruGlass kiosk, a user can scroll through a list of hotels and vacancy reports, select a hotel that has a vacancy, and see a video of the hotel. The video might show the types of rooms available or pool facilities.) Touching an on-screen auto-dial button connects the user to the hotel through a full-duplex speaker phone. The user can then make is hotel reservation - right from the kiosk. Another on-screen button generates a printed confirmation and a map and directions to the hotel.

Restaurant owners can also capitalize on Chamber Works. For example, a kiosk in a hotel lobby is an ideal tool for tourists to use when deciding where to have dinner. The kiosk can display menus, prices, even pictures or videos, of entries. And, using the autodial feature, diners can make reservations or print discount coupons right at the kiosk.