The role of the guides is central to any safari. On our recent trip to Zimbabwe and Botswana we were fortunate to be guided by particularly enthusiastic and knowledgeable individuals. One was a real-life Crocodile Dundee, striding energetically through the bush in search of big game, while another was more reminiscent of David Attenborough, with the knowledge and presence to bring interest to the drabbest of birds.
It is nearly impossible to conceive of technology completely replacing such human expertise. However, this is an extreme example of travel guiding and there is certainly increasing scope for technology to support our general travel experience.
Bird-watching was a particular focus of our trip. We carried a number of traditional guidebooks, most notably Roberts, the bible for Southern African twitchers. Perhaps a couple of pounds in weight, but nevertheless indispensable for identifying the behaviour, habitat and songs of even the smallest of Little Brown Jobs, or LBJs.
Sounds are of particular importance for identification and here technology has much to offer. Roberts provides an interpretation of the call such as kleeu-wi-wip or twee-tittle-tir and also a sonogram, showing frequency, duration and amplitude of the song in a visual format. However, this is quite a challenge for all but the real enthusiast blessed with perfect pitch and we struggle to progress much beyond distinctive calls such as the Fish Eagle or Grey Lourie.
Tapes or CDs of recorded calls are available but how about an instantly accessible audio clip in a multimedia field guide? Advances in digital audio processing and storage are key to such possibilities and the MP3 standard is indicative of current trends.
The box outlines the basics of MP3, which enables high-quality audio to be downloaded over the Internet and carried on miniature, robust players. While the performance of MP3 may not be optimised for bird-song, I am sure that it gives adequate performance. On-line MP3 birdsong libraries will doubtless grow through the communal efforts of the world-wide brotherhood of bird enthusiasts.
With many people carrying increasingly powerful digital storage and playback facilities, the opportunities extend well beyond bird song.
A laptop computer already enables travellers to carry their own video and music library and there will also be scope for time-limited, location-specific content.
For example, we might load an MP3-encoded local city tour from a visitor centre or hotel reception desk or a scenic drive commentary from a petrol station.
As ever, the Internet will make such material globally accessible so that local authors and historians will be competing with international publishers for the public’s attention.
Returning to our southern African birding experiences, a logical next step for the multimedia field guide will be the capture and categorisation of audio and even image data.
Such developments are only a matter of time and auto-identification will certainly raise the status of the computer guide.
However, mechanistic expertise is only a part of the solution and adding a human personality will be just as great a challenge.
Technical Frame
MP3 is a powerful compression/decompression algorithm, or codec, that can greatly shrink sound files without forfeiting quality. CD audio plays at about 1.4Mbit/s, while MP3 provides almost indistinguishable quality at roughly 128kbit/s, or less than one tenth unencoded speed.
MP3 has been an agreed standard since 1992 but has risen to prominence in the last few months.
The reason is that the latest high-speed (56kbit/s) modems make it possible to download CD-quality songs in a few minutes, while high-performance PC hardware (300 MHz Pentium) can decode them in real-time without specialist hardware.
Using MP3 coding, people have been able to transfer songs from CD, compress them and post the files on the Web, threatening to transform the industry and establish an entirely new way to buy, sell and distribute music. PC-based MP3 players are freely available and thousands of music downloads are also available for free.
Dedicated MP3 players are also starting to appear. With no moving parts, these cigarette-pack-sized devices are ideal for joggers and travellers.
Car decks have also been announced and other manufacturers are working on less portable MP3 stereo components for the living room.
And MP3 is not alone, with a wide range of competing audio codecs. These are typically tailored to a specific technical or business challenge, including issues of payment and copyright control.
Looking forward, as bandwidth increases and codecs improve, consumers will download full-length feature films to home theatres and portable devices.
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