noTours soundwalk budapest july 2011

We digged into using the noTours application for android phones, and on the way solved some problems/bugs.
It seems that different versions of phones and/or android have different architectures, where they store data. So with the currently (July 2011) available version of noTours online, it does not work with newer phones.

We have 4 androids at hand, and got the online version running for Huawei.
For the Samsung phones, we needed a different .apk
So, Enrique, one of the main developpers of noTours, was very nice and helpful and coded this new apk for us.
I will upload it here.

To create a soundwalk:
The description on the project page on http://www.notours.org/archives/489 is really good.
The main steps are: go out and record the material you want to use, or prepare stuff that you already have. It is recommendable to use .mp3 files, although way should be possible, too.
Then go to http://www.editor.notours.org and either create a new account, or in shared projects, use that one.
The way how this works: online in the editor-page you specify the gps-points or areas where a certain sound should be triggered and combine them with the names of the sounds, the sounds themselves are not online, they have to be copied manually to each phone. Once you defined all spots, you downlowd a zip-file that is automatically created there and copy this to your phone.
There is one file created in the online-interface that is called soundscape.rss
This is the linkage between your locally stored audio files and the specified location.

Once you start the application on your phone, you only have to wait until it stabilizes gps contact and you can start.
Only downer: it only works with google-maps which also means that you have to be online.
It will show the region where you are plus circles where you can find/hear sounds.

At the end it looks like that:

There is one finished for Budapest;
and there is a first version for Bratislava, which can be used as a basis for a collective soundwalk.

we will see, if the android app is
extendable to be triggered by windtime. currently we have problems
with the versions, but the notours people are really helpful on that.