The young researcher and her colleagues at the Multimedia Laboratory at the University of Siena, Italy, built an intelligent, wearable tool that uses a positioning device and a neural network to guess tourists' preferences from their moves and deliver tailor-made information.

The project, named Hyper-Interaction within Physical Space, or HIPS, is funded by the European Commission and carried out by a joint European team, led by the university. Marti's team will demonstrate the system next month at the Siena Civic Museum, seat of the medieval city government.

"I believe new technologies, in particular information technology, can be a powerful carrier of art to the public," said Mauro Civai, the museum's director.

HIPS is basically a personal digital assistant, or PDA, which a user can carry around a museum or town. Infrared and radio emitters near objects or artwork signal their position to the small computer. In the outdoors, GPS, or global positioning satellite system, orients the user.

The device attunes to the individual using it. If a user returns to a specific object, HIPS supplies different and more detailed information. And the computer paces its delivery so the user doesn't have to walk from one place to the next in silence.

The idea behind HIPS is that the real world and the virtual space of information lie on parallel planes. HIPS helps people navigate through the information space, while they walk freely in the physical one.

Testers will use HIPS to navigate Siena's 13th-century palace and view such famous frescoes as Simone Martini's Majesty of Virgin Mary and Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Good and Bad Government.