Are you a fan of travel? Would you like to safari or take a tour around the historical city of Petra, Or perhaps to explore the island of Hawaii?
Some people may find that travelling is exhausting and interesting, but for the people of the besieged Gaza strip, it is so difficult if not impossible.
Ahmed Ashurafa, 22, a graduate of the department of multimedia technology and web development in the Faculty of Information Technology at IUG, will take you wherever you want without you leaving your room or even your bed since what you need is a smart phone, smart glasses, and one of PHOENIX applications.
PHOENIX, which was inspired from the legend of the Phoenician bird or the Rook, works at designing virtual reality applications for smart phones.
Ashurafa explained, “VC technology works on the principle of a photo with 360 degrees viewing angel. It allows the person to move mentally to a virtual environment that is totally different from their real environment. It also allows its user, after putting VC glasses, not only to see the place through the phone’s screen, but also to wander inside it with all viewing angles. This makes him feeling that he is really inside the place.”.
Ashurafa pointed out that the application can be used in many areas including entertainment, and historical and scientific areas. He also noted that his pioneer company PHOENIX is the first Palestinian company working in the field of virtual reality.
Regarding the people of the besieged Gaza Strip, the application is very important as Ashurafa said: ” the application may meet many ambitions and hopes of Gaza people. The internet provided young people with wide knowledge about cultures and civilizations. It also created a sense of curiosity inside them to visit them and wander around their corners, but the political and economic situation in addition to the siege don’t allow them to reach any place outside Gaza.
For this reason, the application is important as it allows a tour to any place that may come to anyone’s mind in addition to voice of information about each corner of the place.
Ashurafa was able to complete a tour around Al Aqsa Mosque, another in a Pharaonic temple, and also a tour in the blood vessels with scenes of progress of red and white blood cells.
Ashurafa hopes to develop a 3D film about the Dome of the Rock, and a competent online library in civilizations and historical heritage of Palestine. He said, ” I hope to establish the first and largest production unit of multimedia Technology in Palestine to be both a reference and a producer of related applications and projects.”
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