DS Lite will guide Japan’s museum visitors

Tokyo is home to lots of intriguing museums — John Lennon, Edo Tokyo, Met Art, Fukagawa and Meiji Jingu Treasure Museum, just to name a few. Nintendo sees this as an opportunity to transform its consoles into more than just gaming devices. If you’ve heard of the PSP’s reported GPS capability, then you now have a fair idea of what the DS Lite has got to do with museums. Nintendo has come up with a new system to guide museum visitors using the DS Lite. The software is currently in development and its first tests in real art galleries will start in Tokyo next month.

It seems like a paradox that if visitors are going to see the artworks on their DS Lite anyway, what do they need to go to a museum for? Of course, you’ve been to art exhibitions and know most artworks aren’t really openly displayed. Some are especially hidden inside glass frames. Just pointing the stylus to the DS Lite screen will show the artwork in full detail. Nifty, eh?

Tokyo is home to lots of intriguing museums — John Lennon, Edo Tokyo, Met Art, Fukagawa and Meiji Jingu Treasure Museum, just to name a few. Nintendo sees this as an opportunity to transform its consoles into more than just gaming devices. If you’ve heard of the PSP’s reported GPS capability, then you now have a fair idea of what the DS Lite has got to do with museums. Nintendo has come up with a new system to guide museum visitors using the DS Lite. The software is currently in development and its first tests in real art galleries will start in Tokyo next month.

It seems like a paradox that if visitors are going to see the artworks on their DS Lite anyway, what do they need to go to a museum for? Of course, you’ve been to art exhibitions and know most artworks aren’t really openly displayed. Some are especially hidden inside glass frames. Just pointing the stylus to the DS Lite screen will show the artwork in full detail. Nifty, eh?