Last Updated: Sunday, April 15, 2007
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In 2007, I finished my masters’ course at the University of Abertay Dundee in Scotland. As topic of my dissertation (or end work) I choose to go in the direction of mobile and wireless technologies. I was always interested in Bluetooth and how to program for it, and so I saw my chance to go deeper into this, for me at the time, unknown subject. I ended with an 80-page document, explaining the pervasive computing environment, detailed Bluetooth technology and a prototype of Bluetooth programming using the .NET 2.0 Framework on the Windows Mobile 5.0 platform.
Type: Research and .NET Mobile application with Bluetooth programming
Location:
Word Document
Used technologies: .NET 2.0, Mobile 5.0, Bluetooth, 32Feet
Introduction
Pervasive computing is the term for making computers and services available everywhere, to everyone at any time without anyone taking notice of it. Pervasive devices are available everywhere, right before our eyes, used by everyone without even seeing them. The most popular devices these days are still the information retrieval devices allowing users to access all kind of information and personalize it to their environment. PDA’s, SmartPhones and even normal cell phones are leaving more and more the basic voice functionalities behind and becoming the centre of data processing. This thesis investigates a service that will add a new service to the global environment of pervasive computing.
The thesis investigates a way for retrieving bus time table information in an easy and cheap way on a person’s personal mobile device. The technology investigated for creating this communication is Bluetooth. The possibilities of this technology are researched with the focus on the OBEX Protocol for exchanging binary objects between two devices. The different profiles are analysed and a final solution is presented in the creation of a new application profile derived from the OBEX GET-operation.
The Ubicomp Environment
When searching for the higher view of this thesis, I came to the computing movement called ubiquitous computing. Ubiquitous computing (or ubicomp), also known as Pervasive Computing, means to enhance computer use by making as many computers available as possible, but trying to make them invisible to the public by embedding them into the environment. Pervasive computing applications are seen as three-tier architecture with the devices providing the interface for the users, workstations and servers who focus mainly on storing and processing the information. All this is placed together with standards and services.
Going deeper from Pervasive computing to the focus of my thesis, I passed the concepts of Context-Awareness and Location-Based services. Both are services that can interact with the end-user according to his location or the context he is demanding. Especially the context awareness became a major part of the thesis since the time schedule information is automatically retrieved according to which bus stop the user is requesting it.