Mobile phone content portability fronts up for marathon challenge

When 1,500 Japanese runners and supporters charter planes and land at the Gold Coast airport for the 2008 Gold Coast marathon in June, many of the runners’ will travel with a mobile phone loaded with kiwi ingenuity

Gallerie, which originated in NZ in 2000 and now based in Japan has taken a well established mobile technology in Japan and adapted a practical function by devising a way to take Gold Coast signage, advertising and public information and provide the translation to be read in Japanese on a mobile phone screen

Japanese tourists are a major income earner for the Gold Coast but the information infrastructure to care for the visitors over 3 days of a special event can be problematic and expensive.

In late 2007 Gallerie teamed up with TBD Group based in Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast to help solve the problem

TBD Group will produce and print a QR code that is placed on or near the signage, when the 2D barcode is scanned using a mobile phone, it displays the message in Japanese. The short text display can include safety warnings, race notifications or public transport information, even special offers at local retailers or what’s available on a menu board.
The on screen content also displays a hyper links to a local help desk and phone website. A global roaming connection is not required for the text translation but necessary for the web or phone connection or any SMS activated response

The Japan hosted phone website for runners and supporters interested in the Gold Coast marathon are required register.
Competitors can then download GPS maps indicating landmarks for pace setting, terrain plus other pages such as shopping, scheduled events bookings and pre paid vouchers.

The screen images or pages are specifically formatted to be saved to the phone, filed for recall in Australia, again without the need for global roaming.
The phone website also offers forum discussion, sponsor links, alerts and newsletters
If extra motivation is needed during the work day, the website also streams video the 2007 race which was won by Japanese male and female runners.

Internet browsing by handsets in Japan surpassed PC use in 2006 and now 1seg digital TV on mobile is common among the 100 million mobile users