kiosk

kiosk

Originally, in Islamic architecture, an open circular pavilion consisting of a roof supported by pillars. The word has been applied to a Turkish summer garden pavilion and a type of early Persian mosque. Today the term refers to any small urban booth that dispenses newspapers, information, or tickets.

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A small, self-standing structure such as a newsstand or ticket booth. Unattended multimedia kiosks dispense public information via computer screens. Either a keyboard, touch screen or both are used for input.

The Photo Kiosk
Do-it-yourself printer kiosks for digital camera picture takers have become very popular. The counterpart to the one-hour photo service for film cameras, photo kiosks take all popular flash memory cards as well as CDs as input. Accepting credit cards for payment, they allow users to select images and perform a limited amount of photo editing. The units can print the photos on the spot as well as burn the images onto a CD. See self-service application and touch screen.

The Photo Kiosk

Photo kiosks have become very popular, popping up in shopping malls and venues everywhere. Touch screens are used on kiosks instead of a mouse because they provide a more rugged and less troublesome interface.

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kiosk - A stall set up in a public place where one can obtain information, e.g. tourist information. The information may be provided by a human or by a computer. In the latter case, the data may be stored locally (e.g. on CD-ROM) or accessed via a network using some kind of distributed information retreival system such as Gopher or World-Wide Web.