Ubiquity is a multiple award-winning company known for its innovative mobile media applications, such as the VUEguide and metroCode.

The VUEguide is a handheld multimedia device that enabled museum visitors to explore exhibits according to their area of interest and at their own pace. It was installed at Vancouver's Museum of Anthropology from the Spring of 2005 through to the Fall of 2007, making it one of the world's first permanent installations of its kind. In the Spring of 2006 the VUEguide was honoured by the American Association of Museums with the Gold Award for excellence in interpretive media.

In 2006 Ubiquity expanded its scope with metroCode, making cultural services such as art tours, city tours, and special event guides available on the most widespread of today's mobile devices: cell phones and iPods. metroCode received a Gold Award for innovation at the 2007 Canadian eTourism Awards.

The company's work also includes assisting organizations and venues interested in learning about the unique benefits of mobile media. We have provided consulting services to clients in Canada, the US and the UK.

Ubiquity has been active in the research community since the co mpany's inception, collaborating with institutions such as The University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Our formal research spans such areas as mobile experience design and group interactions in the museum environment. The company has been invited to present its research to such organizations as the AAM (American Association of Museums), TAA (Themed Attraction Association), and the NAI (National Association for Interpretation), as well to a variety of new media and educational organizations.

Leora Kornfeld
Principal

Leora brings a professional background in broadcasting and an academic background in art history, media theory, and contemporary cultural studies to her work at Ubiquity. A CBC Radio host throughout the 1990s, she then transitioned her career to the area of conceptual development for technologically advanced exhibit spaces. In 2002 she co-founded Ubiquity to pursue the vision of personalized interactive media delivered on mobile
devices. In Spring 2005 Ubiquity launched the award-winning VUEguide, a handheld multimedia museum guide, at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, BC. Most recently Leora developed and led the content production on the launch of metroCode, a cell phone content service.

In addition to her hands-on work with the design and production of the VUEguide and metroCode, Leora is active in the mobile experience research community, frequently presenting case studies of the company's work at conferences in Canada and the US. She holds the position of Research Director with Vancouver’s Mobile MUSE consortium, and has participated in research summits at Intel, MIT, Stanford University, and the Banff New Media Institute. Leora holds a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia and an M.A. in Media & Communications from the UK’s University of London, Goldsmiths College.

Nicholas Simon, Senior Software Developer

Nicholas began working with the Ubiquity team in the fall of 2003. He served as lead programmer on the VUEguide software, a proprietary C++ application for Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. The VUEguide was one of the world's first multimedia museum handheld guides. It received extensive press coverage and was honoured with the Gold Award for excellence in new media technology and cultural interpretation from the American Association of Museums in the Spring of 2006. Nicholas also led the technical development of metroCode, Ubiquity's cell-phone based arts and entertainment service that was among the first to deliver a combination of voice, text, and rich media to cell phones and provide interoperability between mobile devices and the web. In the fall of 2007 metroCode was recognized with a Gold Award for innovation at the Canadian eTourism awards. In addition to working as a technical lead and supervising development teams Nick has experience with industry/academic partnerships with research teams at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Simon Fraser University(SFU), and the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). He is an honours graduate of BCIT's Computer Systems Technology Program.