Existing Alternative for Pushing Content to Mobile Devices

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Existing Alternative for Pushing Content to
Mobile Devices an Analysis and an
Implementation

• Diplomityöseminaari 7.6.2005
• Marcus Mattila 49836w

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Contents agenda

• Background
• Problem statement
• Method
• Related concepts
• Demonstrator application
• Results and conclusions
• Future research items
• supervisor prof. Heikki Hämmäinen
• work conducted at RD project for Sysopen Digia
  Plc.

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Background

• Mobile push services are a potential added
  revenue in future 3G and 4G networks.
• Falling prices and high cellphone penetration
  calls for new services
• Combining push-enabling technologies with
  context-awareness enables proactive, customized
  and value-adding services to be created
• Both B2B and B2C markets can be targeted travel
  services, legacy operative systems, infotainment
  applications...
• There exists alternatives to automatically
  identify a mobile device and sent out a push
  message. Technologies include WAP Push, Wi-Fi,
  SMS/MMS, Bluetooth, MIDP 2.0 PushRegistry, SIP. A
  comprehensive research was needed in order to
  choose and implement a suitable technology for
  SysOpen Digias needs.
• Related concepts to be taken into account were
  context-awareness, multi-channel user interfaces
  and task-based modelling of the human-computer
  interface.

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Problem statement

• The thesis answers the following questions
• What possibilities are there to develop an
  application where content is automatically pushed
  to the end users devices?
• What are the pros and cons of various
  push-enabling technologies?
• What challenges are there in integrating a mobile
  push enabling technology into an enterprise-wide
  application?
• How can context information be utilized when
  pushing content to end users devices?

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Method

• First part literature study
• Second part constructive work resulting in
  technical prototype using the technologies
  selected in the first part

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Related concepts 1/2
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Related concepts 2/2SysOpen OpenChannel

• SysOpen OpenChannel is a J2EE-based framework for
  developing multi-channel and context-aware
  applications that enhance the mobile user
  experience with timely and personalised services.
• OpenChannel aims to solve the problem where
  ever-increasing amount of devices and
  device-specific requirements need to be managed
  in a usable and reusable way.
• Push functionality needed to be integrated into
  SysOpen OpenChannel gt Thesis contribution

left PDA users have a permanent navigation
structure right phone users need to navigate to
another page for accessing it.
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Demonstrator application 1/2

• Push message received in Nokia Communicator
• After opening the link, devices web browser
  opens

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Demonstrator application 2/2

• Front page of demonstrator application

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Results

• Location-based push application implemented using
  WAP Push
• Challenges were related to Jboss 3.2 classloading
  mechanism, integration was a fairly
  straight-forward task. Openwaves
  (www.openwave.com) Java API was used (Openwave
  WAP Push Library).
• Acquired know-how in utilizing context
  information (device, user, physical, time,
  process) efficiently
• Acquired an understanding of pros and cons in
  alternative ways for pushing content to mobile
  devices

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Conclusions

• We identified three main architectural solutions
  for enabling mobile push applications WAP Push,
  SIP, MIDP 2.0 PushRegistry
• A context-awareness approach where all context
  information is retrievable from one logical
  entity is preferable. Accessors to context
  information from both the frontend and the
  backend of the system is preferable.
• WAP Push is a good solution when heterogenous mix
  of devices. SIP is prefereable in a true IP-based
  environment when SIP support comes to mobile
  devices (Nokia Series60 3rd edition). MIDP 2.0 an
  option when thick client approach necessary and
  possible to install the client easily on mobile
  devices
• SMS/MMS not a bad backup

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Future research items

• Integrating SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)
  into SysOpen OpenChannel framework
• Architectural analysis
• What is needed to enable push functionality
• Test SIP functionality in mobile devices
• Questions arise
• Will IPv6 allow for pushing content based on IP
  numbers?
• Privacy, security, presence issues. Especially
  B2C market is challenging.
• Thick client/thin client approach in mobile
  devices