MapCERN: the CERN map on your mobile
On the initiative of the GS Department, a new smartphone application called MapCERN has just been released. Available in two different versions – one from the Apple Store for iPhones and the other from the web for Android and Blackberry – it will help you to find the building you're looking for more easily.
You've got an appointment with someone at the other end of the CERN site and you're planning to use the CERN map to find your way there but you suddenly realise you've left it in your office… No need to panic! Simply take out your smartphone and let it guide you to the building you're looking for.
This first official CERN application, which has been developed by the GS Department in collaboration with private industry, is available free of charge from the Apple Store in the case of iPhones and from maps.cern.ch/mobile/ for the other types of smartphone (Android and Blackberry). Is it intended for anyone needing to find their way to and around the CERN site, from members of the personnel to users, students and visitors.
"The MapCERN application allows you to geolocate yourself, display the building or other feature you're looking for and calculate how far away it is," explains Nathalie Lambert-Cart, a geomatician from the GS Department service responsible for geographic information systems (GIS). "If you have an iPhone, it's also possible to get directions to your "target" and, thanks to its augmented reality system, it will recognise the buildings in its field of view and display their numbers."
MapCERN is a comprehensive application offering a wide range of data covering site access, the routes and stops of the CERN shuttle, transport facilities, restaurants, banks, medical facilities, the Fire Brigade, customs, etc. All you have to do is select or deselect them, according to what you're looking for.
The GS Department is also working on the development of applications that will provide those working at CERN with more specific, technical data, such as the location of underground networks and tunnels.
Full details of MapCERN and other useful links are available here.
| CERN on the net Several smartphone applications relating to CERN have been developed over recent months, such as the iPhone applications LHC Dash and LHC: Info Browser, which give real-time information on the status of the LHC experiments. They also include the LHSee application for Android, which allows you to see collisions at the ATLAS detector in 3D and in real time. More information on this application can be found in an article published in International Science Grid This Week on 26 October. |
