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TELECOM INTERNET DESIGN VRT KIOSK FOR REVENUE COMMISSIONERS

Tuesday, 19 May 1998. A new touch sensitive Vehicle Registration Tax
Information Kiosk, designed by Telecom Internet for the Revenue
Commissioners, has been installed in the Vehicle Registration Office,
Tallaght. The VRT Information Kiosk represents an innovative use of
Internet-based technologies to provide a tangible benefit to the public. The
system is the first customised Internet-based kiosk system in Ireland.
Unlike traditional multimedia touch-screen systems, the retrieval, storage,
presentation and maintenance functionality is implemented entirely using
established and emerging Internet and World Wide Web standards. Content is
served form a Web server and the kiosks act as thin clients.

The VRT Information Kiosk was developed in response to the large number of
enquiries received daily from individuals planning to purchase used cars
abroad. The public can now access details of how much VRT is payable in
respect of almost 10,000 motor car models through the new system. The system
links into a mainframe-based database of car-types and tax-rates. Via a
touch sensitive screen, the customer is offered a choice of over 50
different makes of vehicles with further options by model, fuel type, body,
etc. Factors such as the age and mileage of the car are then selected so
that an accurate assessment of the VRT payment can be given. A printout of
the information is provided.
Besides meeting immediate requirements, flexibility to meet future
requirements was integral to the development of the kiosks. "The system has
been designed to be flexible and we hope to develop it to provide additional
services to the public in the future", says Brendan Hinchy, IT Project
Manager at the Office of the Revenue Commissioners.



"Telecom Internet is delighted to be associated with the development of the
Revenue Commissioners VRT project", says Fintan Lawler, General Manager,
Telecom Internet. "We believe this system represents the future of
Multimedia Kiosks and we look forward to assisting the Revenue Commissioners
in developing the potential of this service."

For further information:
Nuala Buttner
Press Office
Tel: 01 701 5554
Mobile: 087 2352165
Email: [email protected]

Technical Information:
The system is both the first commercial implementation of Dynamic HTML in
Ireland and the first customised Internet based kiosk system in Ireland.
Unlike traditional multimedia touch screen systems, the retrieval, storage,
presentation and maintenance functionality is implemented entirely using
established and emerging Internet and World Wide Web standards, namely:
TCP/IP is the transport protocol used for carrying information and messages
between the client and server components
Client presentation software using Microsoft�s Internet Explorer 4.01,
although the system is designed so it can also use Netscape Navigator.
Client server communication is implemented using HTTP
Microsoft�s Internet Information Server is used to pass information to the
client kiosks for display
Standard Web browser programming languages: Dynamic HTML, Java, and
JavaScript are used throughout to implement a highly ergonomic multimedia
user interface on the clients�
Microsoft�s Active Server Page technology is used on the server to
automatically retrieve information from a Microsoft SQL Server database
using SQL query language calls.
The server component is implemented on a high performance Compaq ProLiant PC
running the Microsoft NT Server 4/0 operating system.
The entire system took 4 months to design and develop.







Thanks Kinetic!

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