www.post-gazette.com, December 2005

Program helps museums get up-close, interactive

Even the audio tours that the Carnegie, and most major museums worldwide, currently provide will be changing in coming years. Antenna Audio, a leading manufacturer of audio tour guides, is rolling out a new version like a handheld computer or PDA, which has a tiny computer screen providing photos and video, along with sound. The new units from the Sausalito, Calif., company are pre-loaded with information -- later versions could get wireless updates or information from global positioning satellites. If they choose, viewers can see backup information and photos of art pieces on the PDAs and bookmark pieces that interest them. The unit will then e-mail the viewer a link with further information.

Antenna Audio's tour guides, taken from museums worldwide, are also going up for purchase on the Web, so art fans can review them before or after museum visits. Many museum experts, including the researchers from UPCLOSE, worry that handheld computers will suck viewers in and away from the art itself. Chris Tellis, Antenna Audio's founder, said he is sensitive to those concerns. 'There are wonderful, wonderful benefits to new technologies, but people don't go to museums for gizmos. They go to museums to see wonderful art and have epiphanies,' he said. 'If technology interferes in any way with that intimate relationship, there will be strong push-back on the part of the visitor. ... Fundamentally, the technology has to be about the art; it can't be about the technology.'

By Timothy McNulty, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tuesday, December 20, 2005

For more information visit:
www.post-gazette.com/pg/05354/624928.stm

About Antenna Audio

For 20 years Antenna Audio has been the leader in the field of digital audio and multimedia interpretation, providing the highest quality programming, equipment solutions and service, with the goal of creating an emotionally and intellectually engaging experience for visitors to museums, historic sites, and attractions. Over 70 million people worldwide have experienced an Antenna Audio tour at more than 800 sites, such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery, London, the Louvre, Edinburgh Castle, the Alcatraz Cellhouse, and Elvis Presley's Graceland.

For further details please contact:
Sarah Dines
Antenna Audio
P.O. Box 176
Sausalito, CA 94966
t: 415 332 4862
e:

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