Blobjects guide globetrotters

Entrepreneurs in the Spanish city of Córdoba have an attractive offer for globetrotters tired of lugging heavy guide books, unraveling cumbersome street maps and using sign language to squeeze information from monoglot locals: They’ve developed electrical sightseeing cars equipped with computers that help navigate old-city quarters, display major attractions and talk.

The battery-powered vehicle is a GEM, or Global Electric Motorcar, manufactured by the U.S. division of DaimlerChrysler. The open-sided vehicle, available in two and four-seat models, looks like a cross between a golf cart and a Volkswagen Beetle, with its flowing, curvilinear design. It can travel up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) on a single charge, at a speed of up to 25 miles per hour.

Because it’s slow and open, riders can smell the scents and hear the sounds as they putter along and view the many sights of monument-rich Córdoba. These include a magnificent cathedral originally constructed in the 8th century as a Moorish mosque, and the Alcázar, a former Moorish palace erected on the site of Roman buildings and used later as the seat of the Inquisition.

Renting a two-seat car for three hours costs €50 ($60) or €80 for an entire day.

Each GEM is equipped with GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) technology that provides passengers with location information. The GPS system is connected to a touch-screen computer mounted in the dash. A memory card inserted into a USB (Universal Service Bus) port provides information in English, French and Spanish on more than 150 attractions in Córdoba, one of Spain’s most famous cities.

When passengers pass within 100 meters of an attraction, its name appears on the 8-inch touch-screen, which they can press to access additional information in the form of text and pictures, as well as video and audio.

The computer system is based on the open-source Linux operating system software. Other free software components include GpsDrive, Phyton, MySQL, and Eclipse.

The reasons for choosing open-source software were money and flexibility, according to Alfredo Romeo, one of three Spaniards who founded the electric-car tourist company Blobject in Córdoba. Thanks to open source, the company has been able to save thousands of euros in software development costs and modify code to meet its individual requirements, writes Romeo in English on his otherwise Spanish-language home page (http://www.aromeo.net/archives/000722.html).

As for the company’s name, Blobject, that’s also linked to the view of Romeo and fellow co-founders, Marco Castilla and Laura Rodriguez, that access to free technologies drives innovation. On his home page, Romeo writes that he and his colleagues aim to make their company an international reference for the “Blobject concept,” which he defines as “any innovation that flows to society based on free, emergent and sustainable technologies.”

The word Blobject, for those interested in etymology, has been around for more than a decade. It’s a contraction of the words “blobby” and “object,” and was coined by design critic and educator Steven Skov Holt in the early 1990s, according to the free Web-based encyclopedia Wikipedia. Karim Rashid, the contemporary designer who wrote the book “I want to Change the World,” was an early leader in creating Blobjects and has become one of the most celebrated designers of the new generation.

Today, the word is often used to describe a colorful, mass-produced and emotionally engaging consumer product. The Blobject’s most distinctive feature is its fluid and curvaceous form.

Blobject, the company, could soon surface in other cities. Romeo and his colleagues have their sights set high. Their next planned stop: Seville, Spain. And who knows where they’re headed after there.