GIS Software Above the Level of a Single Device
A couple of weeks back I surfed over to the Nokia website to check out the latest developments for their Series60 device platform (S60); unsuspecting I stumbled upon some software that really got me thinking.
It turns out, a couple of years back Nokia embarked on a project to port the Apache web server to the symbian operating system that underpins their Series60 device platform. The project was subsequently handed over to the open source community and you can get involved here, project raccoon. Interestingly, Nokia have recently wrapped the web server as user friendly software with a supporting website: www.mymobilesite.net.
I installed the application on my N95 and as you might expect it provides complete access to the contents of my mobile phone via the web. I can fire up the web browser on my desktop PC and browse to a web page, and then click a button on the web page to take a photo with the camera on my phone, wherever my phone might be. I can then use my desktop web browser to browse the photos I have taken, or any other information I have on my phone e.g. contact details or calendar events.
This struck me as a unique piece of software, I tried to think of other software that functioned in a similar manner. After roaming the web for some ideas I found an article from Tim O’Reilly that suggested similar behaviour could be observed with Apple iTunes, he’s coined a term to describe such software as…‘software above the level of a single device’.
Installing the mobile web server software on your phone, allows you to use the software on any number of devices…your phone; a desktop client with web browser; a games console; or any other internet enabled device, even someone else’s mobile phone? Software above the level of a single device - just as Tim O’Reilly describes when he observers that you can control your iPod from an iMac.
From a geospatial perspective, couple the GPS enabled N95 mobile phone, with the mobile web server, and we have a tracking service that can be consumed by any internet enabled device, powerful stuff. Perhaps worthy of more consideration, I look across the GI industry, GIS software vendors, the open source community, and other corners, but I don’t see ‘GIS software above the level of a single device’ as an overriding design architecture?
There is a bigger question here…what happens when 3 billion mobile phones run as personal web servers?
4 Comments, Comment or Ping
Phil Leggetter
I think this is a really interesting find but found myself wondering exactly how useful it is.
To be able to serve up your mobile contents and access your SMS, contacts and call history is very clever but what real use is it? Your mobile is just that - “mobile”. You will have it in your pocket so you can check or send SMS from it directly.
So the question is “what benefits are there to allowing others access
the server on your mobile?”
The benefit, that I think will facilitate Tim O’Reilly’s ideas, is that it introduces new ways to communicate with your mobile device. Depending on the completeness of the port of Apache (and I’ve not looked into this) then your applications, or other devices, can now interact with your mobile using HTTP/HTTPS requests AND web service calls. This significantly increases the ease at which other applications can consume and use services offered by the mobile device. In terms of Tim’s post this means that the desktop application can concentrate on using rich and easy to use functionality with a simple means of communicating (sending new iTunes playlists, re-organising an address book etc.) with the device. This removes the need to use a small and clunky user interfaces to perform complex tasks.
Note: Mobile UIs are getting much better due to better screen technology and improved UI design.
In addition, if your mobile can be accessed over HTTP then it further removes the need for infrared, Bluetooth and cabled connections between a PC and your device. Issues relating to the ability to transfer data securely, reliable and at speed still need to be addressed but improvements are being made all the time.
I think the web server on a mobile device is a very interesting concept with potential application across many fields including GIS.
Jun 18th, 2008
Rob
So “what benefits are there to allowing others access the server on your mobile?” - good question; I think one big impact could be on the telco business model, I’ve penciled some thoughts down in another post - the game changer…
Jun 19th, 2008
Evert Bopp
Looks very interesting and I am staright off to read more and test the app.
Wonder if I can install it on my phone and serve web-pages locally through wifi…
Mmmmm, the mind boggles…
Jul 19th, 2008
Rob
Hi Evert,
I had this running on my wifi for a couple of days, I was that impressed I got straight onto vodafone and signed up for a £5 a month (500MB) internet connection.
Just like a typical apache install on a web server, there is a htdocs folder you can dump serve web pages from. I’ve mainly been playing with the REST web services and find it takes 4-5 seconds to handle a request for a page; the web services are implemented in python which I suspect accounts for the slow response speed, it would be interesting to compare the response speed with just some simple html, I suspect it would be much faster.
Rob
Jul 19th, 2008
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