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IEEE workshop on Next-Generation Networking and Open Source Technologies

2008-03-18T13:34:00Z

IEEE NGNOPS- First International workshop on NEXT GENERATION NETWORKS: OPEN PLATFORMS & SERVICES is being co-hosted with the IEEE NGMAST by the Integrated Communications Research Centre, University of Glamorgan in Cardiff between 16th -19th Spetember 2008.

Why this workshop?

Converged networks and services are becoming a fast reality to provide anytime, anywhere networked services. While the standards bodies and the processes are providing the necessary normalisation by way of standards, the implementation of standards compliant networked systems to provide for converged services require development and test deployments before they go into production networks. Open Source software packages in these areas will make a difference by their availability and therefore providing a means of test deploying the new services. However, the challenge is to identify what is available as well as what is expected to be available from the open source community in terms of such software packages. The proliferation of mobile computing provides scope for many innovative mobile applications. Emerging open mobile devices, and devices that come with open development kits would make available the development environment to a large developer community. Such resources, projects and/or communities need to be identified and/or facilitated. From a business perspective, there is a big opportunity to realise cost effective services by providing cost effective solutions. This is true of markets in South and South-East Asia. Can open source solutions make a difference here? Are they interoperable with other commercial solutions? Again, what is available and what will be available? Finally, are there any technical concerns in the open source developer community that are not addressed? Would this community require any additional facilitation? The NGN-OPS workshop intends to address these issues.

Objective of the workshop

The objective of the NGN-OPS workshop is to discuss the open source activities contributing to aspects Next Generation Networking (NGN), mobile devices, development environment and open source technologies enabling in creating an open ecosystem. We are inviting both theoretical, developmental and experimental papers as well as work-in-progress research projects. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Open Source software development projects and community efforts relating to

o Next Generation Networking
o Mobile Devices
o Mobility Technologies
o Pervasive Networking
o Mobile Applications Development Frameworks and Tools
o Deployment of Community Networks using Open Source software and tools

Open Standards efforts relating to

o Next Generation Networking
o Mobile Applications and Web 2.0
o Network Management for NGNs

Open Source based

o NGN Services prototypes
o NGN Services test beds

Community based efforts in Wireless Networking

You test, you Learn

2007-10-26T01:39:46Z

Following up on my previous post about deploying your application over the air, I was assuming the use of User-agent header as my only source of recognizing the device and its capabilities.

Yet, 2 days ago, I had a device that only identified itself through the header "x-device-user-agent"

This small difference really affected the system 's behavior because a device with full capability was assigned a very limited profile because I couldn't find good information about it.

So, the user-agent looked like this { Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.0.7) Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7 MG (Novarra-Vision/6.1) }

and the x-device-user-agent looks like this{ SEC-SGHE900/1.0 NetFront/3.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 }

of course, I had to improve my code and I had to contact the user to reinstall.

I believe it could be a provider specific thing because this is the first time I see this header even with the same device.

Do you have any idea what affect those headers??? PLease et us know.

J2me web emulator (show off your work)

2007-10-24T13:17:00Z

"wouldn't it be nice to link to my j2me application where everyone can view it anywhere in the world without needing to explain any technical details to them??"

I am sure every J2me developer thought of this at a certain point and I can imagine some smart ones have had their own workaround ages ago.

Just yesterday, I found this free web emulator for J2ME application and seriously all you have to do as a developer is append your Jad link to the free web emulator link (more details here). That is it.

and your application is ready to work online :))

Now, send the link to everyone and give a live demo of your application and I can also see alot of potential in using this type of web emulators in Mobile application testing.

Just a note: the emulator only supports MIDP2.0 and CLDC 1.0

Also, the camera is not supported at the moment. But, I am sure we are getting there. By the way, there might be others outthere. This is one is free though and open source for developers.

Demo the emulator:

take the url to your jad file, simply prepend:

http://webstart.mpowerplayer.com/

For example,

http://ota.mpowers.net/piranha/pna-us.jad

becomes

http://webstart.mpowerplayer.com/ota.mpowers.net/piranha/pna-us.jad

Don't believe it, till you test it

2007-05-02T14:38:28Z

Wow, I haven't written a post for ages. I just needed to write this down somewhere to make sure I give this message for all the developers who maintain different versions of their midelts for different phones: Don't trust j2me over windows mobile.

Always test the new features because the jvm on PPC might not have the decency to tell you what is wrong, it will crash or adopt the silence approach.

I would say so far, treat your pocket pc version as if it is MIDP2.0 and CLDC1.0, just to be on the safe side.

It doesn't matter if the device supports MIDP2.0 or JTWI, it still won't work on your fancy windows based PDA.

Let me be more specific in documenting my experience. The following capabilities won't work even on a JTWI PPC:

PIM functionalities of integrating with calendars
using the phone camera to take photos and videos

Currently, I disabled these functionalities for the users who own a PPC device. The deal is that mobile windows now will come with a built-in "INTENT MIDLET MANAGER" to allow you to run java apps. But, it is only basic stuff and it doesn't work as good and as reliable as it does on phones. I don't know if it is the midlet manager fault (doubt it) or the operating system fault (more likely). I didn't try to download a different midlet manager since I don't expect my users to do this on their devices.

If I find more incompatiable functionalities, I will document them here.

To be continued .... ;)

PTT - A Spill over from the previous post

2007-02-17T10:53:37Z

Talking of PTT, I'll start as a pessimist . PTT although is like a voice IM is not as appealing as IM. The reason being, intuitively , one way communication with that delay in response works well in text mode, but in speech, you are not used to the delay in response ( thanks telephones which have gotten you programmed for no delay). Thus the walkie-talkie feature is not so much of a catch , unless you are bill conscious and PTT is offered for a lower price than normal voice calls. Furthermore sms has grown on users so much in these many years that PTT kind of simple application has got no attention. I strongly feel PTT will never be used in a big! way by normal users.

But, then all's not lost. I see potential and specialised applications for PTT taking off in a big way. Pust-to-Broadcast a voice message to a group of users as mentioned in the previous post is an innovative application. PTT in a carphone where a push directly connects you to your Car mechanic is an interesting auto-mobile application, PTT can be used in many military and medical emergency situations. And , what if call centres supported PTT , they would make sense on the bills, especially when you have to wait for long for the customer service agent gets back to you for each of your query. I don't know how much of this makes sense to you guys????

IMS scenario

2007-01-24T11:31:48Z

Just found this podcast from Ericsson education and it says in very simple words what is IMS (IP Multimedia subsystem). Something we should see working very soon.

What I like about the IMS scenario is the Push to talk use. I just never understand why features so simple are never used. Push to talk is a simple walkie talkie but when you speak about it, it is as if you are speaking in advanced chemistry or something. Anyway, if u like IMS, listen to this. If you don't like IMS, why don't you start liking it ;)

Just click on Podcasts below

Watch out Smart Phones, the iPhone is coming

2007-01-22T00:25:31Z

I don't usually like to announce or promote new devices but I am willing to make an exception for Iphone. Not because it combines the ipod, the phone and the internet capabilities together, or because it looks soooo good, or because the navigation is fantastic but because I love the idea behind its design. Software is the key of the whole navigation system. No fixed buttons that has to be there even if you don't need it. And how can you ever change those buttons when you ship million devices??

That is exactly my argument for building my mobile client. The navigation is dynamic, the buttons and everything are decided on the fly and they are unique for each feature. You don't have unnecessary options. I can change them from the server side so I don't care to change anything on the user's side. I loved this idea and this is the only way I can see applications being done for the future in the mobile business. The iphone is the biggest proof to me.

If you have the time, you have to watch this. It is like someone is speaking out loud about what is wrong with current mobile devices. Ahhhh, you hear it and you feel like "right onn" :) It is not short but it is worth watching.There is so much to see about iphone and I think this is the best introduction to it. I definitely don't want to be with the competition of this thing ;) I am afraid I might give up the love of my life (my p800) for this.

Still crazy over mobile content

2007-01-04T16:18:00Z

I spoke before about the growing popularity of mobile content authoring and adapting existing content to suit mobile browsers. What about research in this area?

The most popular way of web content adaptation is at the proxy level. This makes alot of sense , right? But, how the adaptation is done is what matters. Adaptation could be based on redundancy or it could be automated.

I will tell you a little secret, what triggered me to write this post was that i read in this book, that redudancy is something that we should plan for while preparing mobile learning content. So, I felt that I had to say nooooooooo in anyway possible.

So, following the proxy logic, imagine right before the content is sent to the mobile device, the software can choose from several pre-prepared formats of the content or it can just use a technique for automatic adaptation of the content (mostly an artificial intelligence technique: markov models, bayesian networks ..etc).

The automatic adaptation option is certainly more difficult but imagine: no copies, no reversioning, no inconsistencies, no problems :)

so again no redudancy and more intelligence please :)

This type of research mostly falls under the human computer interaction research. And what I really like about using AI in adapting content for mobile use is that you can take in consideration user's preferences and history of use (more). You can really learn more about your users before your talk to them, what a nice customer service, right ;)

I am using Bayesian networks to achieve this type of content adaptation. If it relates to your work in anyway or if you feel like discussing, drop me a comment.

For more, See:

http://www.teco.edu/~gaedke/paper/1998-lncs1552.pdf

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1053609

It is all about the money

2006-12-11T04:47:34Z

If you don't use the internet from your phone, most probably your main concern is how much this simple browsing will cost you. Some people really think big numbers when thinking of mobile web costs. It is true and I am one of these people :)

I had the same conclusion from a survey i have done with the students as to why they don't use the internet from their phones. It wasn't about how the content displayed or the limitations of their phones but mostly the main reason for not using it is the cost.

I knew that the charges were decreasing and I knew that there are many ways to sign into packages with operators that will allow me to use the internet with controlled costs but still, the fear was still there. My colleague Mike grabbed my attention to an article in the independent newspaper stressing this fear amongst people to use mobile internet.

The article talks about why the mobile internet and mobile TV were not growing that much. It is because of the lack of awareness of the services and packages given by mobile operators.

What was nice about this article was it compared different charging strategies for different mobile operators. Orange was the best among them offering 4 MB free for first use then 1 pound per MB afterwards.Also, I never knew that vodafone live was free unless you attempt to download something.

But, seriously, the idea of calculating charges is such a turn off and it can't be the future of mobile web. But, let us think "unlimited browsing" for a certain fee per month or per year depending on how frequently you use the internet, doesn't this sound great? According to the article, vodafone live is available for free unlimited browsing for users but of course no download. So there is some hope out there :)

I so much believe in this concept that I am puting off my large scale evaluation trying to achieve this somehow. In another post, I will give an estimation of how much each operator charges for using my application in mobile learning. I feel it will be fun to see the differences ;)

VOIP-mania

2006-11-29T23:59:00Z

I don't know how a simple search for a USB VOip phone got me into reading about SIP adapters and voip routers.

The Usb voip phones are simply user friendly handsets that could make your chatting over voip life easier especially, for users who are not that familiar with internet chatting (like my parents). But of course, you have to be connected to the internet through a PC to use these USB phones.

But, no that is not enough? The temptation is to forget about the PC at all. We need to use these voip phones regardless of the existence of PCs. So, you will find WLans phones and you can just download the voip software or client you need to chat. Also, there are Dual Mode phones which act as both Dect cordless phones and voip phones. The dual mode phones are more independent and of course much more expensive.

I have to say, I was very tempted to buy one of these dual mode ones but the trick question is which one to buy? They are first generation devices, too new to actually decide what is good or what is bad. We need some real user experience and feedback, please tell us if you have used them before.

It was like a closed circle search. I am back where I started as I don't know what to buy :)

Sip appears in the picture again. Many voip software on the phones supports sip or even through the sip adapter i mentioned earlier.

The sip adapter allows you to use either phone line or voip and according to the features, it switches automatically. I need some time for this image to sink in. But, it seems that it is going to be a great hit. Rafal , my colleague is telling me it is scam though and such device doesn't exist. So be careful before you buy it. His point is that this sip adapter is said to be certified by skype but skype doesn't even support SIP. So, that is why he is assuming that it could be an unreal thing. SO BE CAREFUL BEFORE YOU BUY.

How secure our mobile devices are?

2006-11-25T22:10:10Z

Ever wondered that the mobile device we carry along 24/7 is prone to attack by malicious users. If the attack has been carried successfully, the intruder can modify or at least can have an access to the contacts/messages or any sensitive data on the mobile device. Some of the research teams in the world are continually trying to exploit all such threats to the mobile devices, which are becoming necessity these days in most of personal and industrial applications.

As you might be aware of that the mobile devices would soon become an integral part of the healthcare sector where a specialised doctor can remotely access patients over a wireless medium. Security issues of the device will be of utmost importance where the patient's confidential data may either be transmitted or stored on temporary basis.

Some of the issues that have been spotted on eweek's website are as follows:

First J2ME Mobile Phone Trojan Spotted

Security Threat Looms as Wireless Blooms

Careless Users Challenge Mobile Security

Mobile Computing Risks Are Rising

Symantec Intros Anti-virus Software for Windows Mobile

After going through a lot of literature, what I realised is that it's the users who should be blame not the technology. So to avoid security breach, we need to avoid human loops in the systems to follow.

Mobile Learning and SIP

2006-11-22T11:45:07Z

Just when you think you have a new idea :), "Mobile learning and SIP". I guess it wasn't going to take too long for researchers to discover this combination. I just read about some research in Thailand about integrating VClass (online learning system) services with SIP. Also, I noticed that the MobiLearn project is also taking SIP into consideration. We are still speaking 2006 though.

I guess it was a must for Mobile learning to go towards SIP because the need in Mobile learning is converging towards finding an infrastructure for providing mobile learning services. It is still new but it is a start. Let us see if IMS will appear in the picture too. It is exciting to see such technologies working with each other.

The VLE approach towards integrating learning services over SIP as well is a very practical one. Again, using inhand, existing techniques for content authoring but still open up the deployment over one robust, reliable infrastructure.

It is not a new idea anymore.

Athens View

2006-11-20T00:49:09Z

Athens view is the name of the hall where the IEEE 4th international workshop on wireless, mobile and ubiqutious technologies in education 2006 (WMUTE) took place. It has a good view of the acropolis, i guess that is why they call it Athens View. Since, there was no time to go to see the acropolis, I guess the organizers thought they would make us feel that we saw it :)

As the title indicates, the WMUTE workshop's theme is basically mobile learnig with a focus on future visions of the use of wireless technologies in education. Our contribution to this workshop is a basic outline of a new architecture that we have developed to enable on-demand adaptive mobile learning. It involves flexsibile interoperability with VLEs. Currently, this architecture is deployed for foundation students at the university. The system is not released for all students though. Hopefully, this is going to be the next step.

In the conference, I have felt a sense of enthusiasm towards simplicity, usability, adaptivity, personalization and flexibility. These are criteria that I felt were not valued enough by researchers in mobile learning before so I am quite happy that there is some progress. Well, may be what sparked this progress is the fact that mobile learning is progressing very slowly on a large scale even though small scale experiments were very successful.

Check this page for more impressions and thoughts about different presentations.

I Can't stop writing without mentioing how good the greek sweets were :) I didn't have the chance to eat real greek food but for some reasons, sweets were everywhere.

Crazy over mobile content

2006-11-13T15:01:40Z

It only takes a few months of pure coding to make you feel that you are out of date of the current research, doesn't it? ahh programmer's hibernation:)

Yesterday I was trying to catch up with what is up with providing mobile content and boooooom, lots of things came up that made my eyes roll. Of course the usual stuff about famous providers providing mobile adapted version of what is existing like google and yahoo. I particulary liked the hot discussion about google's adaptation of mobile content.

But, what grabbed my attention the most was the AOL adoption of InfoGin for this service. InfoGin actually provides dynamic and intelligent adaptation of content to mobile devices. I haven't seen that before, at least in the business world. I have always been against the idea of pre-preparing pages for mobile use and it is good to see some movement towards automation in this.

The idea of automating adaptation "was" the main focus of my PhD. I realized afterwards, that using a J2ME client gives me more control over the interface and content display so my approach towards adapation is different than those who are just targeting the mobile browser.

Well, I definitely wouldn't use specific authoring content to author content only for mobile device. I do believe that creating content that only works on a speicifc platform won't last.

Let us see what will happen during the next hibernation ;)

A word from the wise guy

2006-11-01T00:44:00Z

I just couldn't stop myself from sharing something I learned today. With a phone that doesn't support serial port connection or network access over bluetooh, I can still connect to the internet over bluetooth and using the Pc's internet connection YAYYYYYY

I have spoken before about how you can do this kind of connection using your default bluetooth software only in case

the network access is a service that supported on your device and with your adapter. ( I love using this on HP ipaq)
Or through serial port service in case your phone is s symbian based smartphone and you have an mRouter running on your PC that will support this virtual connection.

But, it was the first time to do this on a Nokia N70 that doesn't support serial port, network access through bluetooth and doesn't come with an mRouter by default. Here is a detailed manual with snapshots to show you how to do this for your Nokia N70 and download an application on your phone (only symbian based) gnubox and mRouter as well.

It will take a bit of time to set it up but it is really worth it. Especially if you are a developer and you don't want to spend money on using GPRS to test.

You need to know that when you do this workaround connection then it won't be really used by the built in applications on your phone. Meaning that, this connection can be used by OPERA browser for example but it can't be used by the main web browser of the phone. Same for mail and messaging applications. You will find many free third party applications to download to replace these applications if you are interested. You will find links to these apps here.

Luckily, Midlets can detect this type of connection and use it as if it is a normal GPRS connection but of course faster :)