The University of Macau won a prize at the prestigious Asia Pacific Information and Communication Technology Awards 2004 (APICTA 2004), which concluded in Hong Kong last week.<\/p>
APICTA is a regional event aimed at promoting excellence in information and communications technology in the Asia-Pacific region. It was first held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2001 and 2002, followed by Bangkok, Thailand in 2003, and Hong Kong this year. Participating member economies are Australia, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.<\/p>
This year\u2019s event brought 146 nominations from 14 countries to Hong Kong. During the first two days of the event, on 8th and 9th December, nominations were presented to a panel of international judges from the member economies. The competition consists of 14 different categories, including e-Government and Services; Education and Training; Secondary Student Projects; Tertiary Student Projects; Research and Development; Applications and Infrastructure Tools; Security; Financial Applications; Industrial Applications; Healthcare; Communications Applications; Media and Entertainment; Tourism and Hospitality; and General Applications. This year\u2019s Macau delegation included five nominations in three categories. Nominations were judged on four key criteria: features, market potential, uniqueness, and quality.<\/p>
In a gala dinner award presentation ceremony on 10th December the winners in each category were announced. In each category there can be at most one winner, but in some categories there was no winner as none of the category\u2019s nominations received the minimum required winning score. This year the University of Macau\u2019s nomination \u201cMacauMap Smart Phone Edition\u201d was the winner of the Tourism and Hospitality category, the only winner from this year\u2019s Macau delegation. So far, since the University of Macau joined the APICTA event last year, this is the second successive win in the event. At last year\u2019s APICTA event in Thailand, the project \u201cMuseum Guidance System\u201d also won the prize of the Tourism and Hospitality Category.<\/p>
Last month, MacauMap Smart Phone Edition won the first prize of the Macau Information and Communication Technology Award organized by the Macau Computer Association. It was developed at the University of Macau\u2019s Faculty of Science and Technology by year four software engineering students Angelina Chow, Rebecca Lam, and Leslie Lei, under the supervision of Dr. Robert P. Biuk-Aghai. The map data used in the MacauMap application was supplied by the Macao Cartography and Cadastre Bureau; bus route data was supplied by the Lands, Public Works and Transport Bureau; and hotel, restaurant, and sightseeing data was supplied by the Macau Government Tourist Office.<\/p>
MacauMap Smart Phone Edition is a tourist guide system based on smart mobile phones. It displays a detailed map of the whole of Macau, Taipa, and Coloane, and provides information about places of interest to tourists. Besides basic features provided by digital map software, such as map navigation, searching, etc, MacauMap includes five tourism-specific features: (1) Walking Tours: a set of seven popular walking tours through Macau, including description, slide show of views on the tour, and route display in the map. (2) Sightseeing Guide: 120 sightseeing spots organized into seven categories, including photo and description. (3) Hotel & Restaurant Guide: 28 hotels and 238 restaurants, categorized by district and class. A \u201cdirect-dial\u201d feature lets the tourist call the hotel or restaurant with a single button push. (4) Bookmarks: a feature for adding locations to the map, including a photo taken with the smart phone\u2019s camera. (5) Bus Route Calculator: calculates the shortest route between any starting and destination bus stop among the 331 bus stops and 40 bus routes<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The University of Macau won a prize at the prestigious Asia Pacific Information and Communication Technology Awards 2004 (APICTA 2004), which concluded in Hong Kong last week.APICTA is a regional…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n