I have always loved museums.
It amazes me that most simply don’t have space to display the vast majority of their collections.
Today’s invention is a recommendation engine which drives an automated display system for museums.
Visitors would sit in booths and enter the subject of their search on a screen. Items from an unseen automated warehouse containing the collection (perhaps multiple different collections) would appear on a conveyor belt behind a glass wall.
Information would be available on the screen about each item, together with a way to store data which were interesting/relevant -for use in current projects. An overview would contain links which, if followed, would cause various other items to appear on the conveyor.
Each artefact would be accompanied by a set of tickboxes on-screen. These would allow a visitor to specify the extent to which the current item was interesting and to help recommend the next one to appear (rather than a like/dislike choice, the engine would be able to form a view about the reasons for one’s recent preference, the better to suggest increasingly satisfying exhibits).
