Mobile Edutainment System -- National Palace Museum as an Example

In order to achieve highest level of knowledge dissemination, many museums have been digitalizing their collections and disseminated them to the world through the Internet. On the other hand, cloud computing and mobile communication technologies will further enhance the penetration capability of digital information, enabling mobile users surfing the wave of information world at anytime and anywhere through mobile devices such as smart phones or tablet PC. Nevertheless, both technologies have their own limitations that may hinder their applicability to the digital museums. We use the National Palace Museum (NPM) as a reference museum for the application of cloud computing and mobile communication technologies to mobilize digital museums. A set of design guidelines specific to the NPM´s services is formulated and a few edutainment systems were implemented based on these guidelines: (1) Qing Ming Painting and (2) Mao Gong Ding Inscription graphical exhibition systems. With mobilization, the NPM and other museums will be able to lift their world-class services to another level for the benefit of all.