1,500,000 visitors in 300 European cities participate every last Friday of the month of September in Researchers’ Night, an event which takes place every year all over Europe and Greece, since 2005. Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas hosts the event in Heraklion, Crete, in its main building.
In 2017 the Ambient Intelligence Programme of the Institute of Computer Science presented the following interactive systems:
- iEat: An interactive restaurant table, an innovative smart restaurant table that aims at enhancing restaurant customers’ experience in terms of entertainment, socialization, food selection and ordering, providing the users with natural interaction with the table itself, as well as with physical objects placed upon its surface. Users are able to browse, select and order the restaurant’s dishes through iEat, as well as receive recommendations for pairing selected food dishes with wine towards enhancing the dining experience.
- Virtual Fitting Room, an interactive augmented reality system which allows users to be immersed in a “virtual mirror” where they can try on traditional Cretan or Minoan costumes while standing in front of a vertical interactive display.
- Be There NOW!, an interactive system that allows multiple users to view themselves within a digital collection of photographs from Heraklion in the early 20th century. In addition, users are able to take snapshots of themselves embedded in black and white pictures and send them via email. An old folding camera, designed in the 1930s, comprises a touch screen with which users are able to interact and take pictures of someone standing in front of the camera.
- Telephone Booth, a reconstruction of a telephone booth from the 1930s that comprises an antique rotary phone which rings whenever it detects someone walking towards the booth. When a user reacts to the call and picks up the phone, she/he is given instructions instruct how to call great Cretan personalities of the past, such as N. Kazantzakis, E. K. Venizelos etc., and famous musicians, and listen to them speak or perform.
- Barrel Organ, a highly decorated traditional barrel organ shows a digital video of Crete from the 1930’s accompanied by music.
