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Proximity as a service About one approach for delivering hyper-local dataDmitry Namiot Lomonosov Moscow State University dnamiot@gmail.comManfred Sneps-Sneppe Ventspils University College manfreds.sneps@gmail.com BCFIC 2012

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About•A new model for distributing hyper-local data across mobilesubscribers• Our model uses Wi-Fi proximity approach as a service• Any existing or even especially created Wi-Fi hot spot couldbe used as presence sensor that can trigger access forsome user-generated information snippets.• An especially developed mobile application (context-awarebrowser) can present that information to mobile subscribers.• Possible use-cases for this application: deliveringcommercial information in malls, distributing data in SmartCity projects, sharing news feeds for office centers andcampuses as well as for the personal classifieds and citygames.

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ContentsIntroductionProximity projectsSpot Expert (SpotEx)Future developmentConclusion

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IntroductionThe common definitions:• Proximitysensor is the sensor able to detect the presenceof nearby objects without any physical contact• Context awareness is defined as complementary element tolocation awareness. Anything we can add to location• Whereas location may serve as a determinant for residentprocesses, context may be applied more flexibly with mobilecomputing with any moving entities, especially with bearers ofsmart communicators.

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Context-awareModern applications adopt a context-awareperspective to manage:d)communication among users and amongsystems, or between the system and the user,b) situation-awareness, like modeling location andenvironment aspects (physical situation) or thecurrent user activity (personal situation)c) knowledge chunks: determining the set ofsituation-relevant information, services or behaviors

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Wi-Fi and location• The most popular approach for indoor-positioning• Wi-Fi location positioning is based on a grid ofWi-Fi hotspots providing, in general, 20–30meters location accuracy.• The big question is costly infrastructurepreparation (what is a location for our base Wi-Fitags?)• One alternative: Cooperative Location-sensingsystem (CLS) is an adaptive location-sensingsystem that enables devices to estimate theirposition in a self-organizing manner

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Location and LBS• Do we really need location in all LBS?• In the most cases location is just an intermediatestage. It is a key used in requests for geo-database• The target in the most cases is geo-data. Contextaware information is the true goal for LBSapplications (for most of them)• What if we provide context aware data directly,without the location?• Here comes the proximity: “if you are close (near)to some then …”

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Proximity projectsSome existing projects:• AllJoyn• Nokia Instant Community• LocalSocialMost of them targets end-user devices. Device todevice proximity. Our own project: device toinfrastructure proximity.

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Spot Expert (SpotEx)• What if we stop our traditional indoor positioningschema on the first stage:detection of Wi-Fi networks?• This detection actually already provides someinformation about the location – just due to localnature of Wi-Fi network.And as the second step we add the ability todescribe some rules (if-then operators, orproductions) related to the Wi-Fi access points.

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SpotEx• Our rules will simply use the fact that the particularly Wi-Fi network is detected. And based on thisconclusion we will open (read – make them visible)some user-defined messages to mobile terminals.• Actually it is a typical example for the contextaware computing. The visibility for user-definedtext (content) depends on the network context.• This approach uses Wi-Fi proximity• Any Wi-Fi hot spot works here just as presence sensor.

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SpotExSo, our service contains the following components:• database (store) with productions (rules) associatedwith Wi-Fi networks• rule editor. Web application (including mobile web)that lets users add (edit) rule-set, associated withsome Wi-Fi network• mobile applications, that can detect Wi-Fi networks,check the current conditions against the databaseand execute productions

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SpotEx – how does it work• We can take any exiting Wi-Fi network(or networks especially created for this service – themost interesting case) and add some rules (messages)to that network.• Message here is just some text that should bedelivered to the end-user’s mobile terminal as soonas the above-mentioned network is getting detectedvia our mobile application.• The word “delivered” here is a synonym for “availablefor reading/downloading”.

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SpotEx – use casesThe possible use cases:• Some shop can deliver deals/discount/coupons rightto mobile terminals as soon as the user is near somepredefined point of sale.We can describe this feature as “automatic check-in”for example. Rather than directly (manually or viasome API) set own presence at some place (e.g.similar to Foursquare, Facebook Places etc.)with SpotEx mobile users can pull data automaticallyand anonymously

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SpotEx – use cases• Campus admin can deliver news and specialannounces• Hyper local news in Smart City projects could be tight(linked) to the public available networks and deliveredinformation via that channel etc.• The most interesting (by our opinion, of course) usecase: Wi-Fi hot spot being opened right on the mobilephone

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SpotEx – use cases • Open Wi-Fi Access Point right in the mobile • Add (link) proximity rules for this access point exactly • Rules will define data chunks (info snippets) for users nearby this phone

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SpotEx – security issues• Our approach does not touch security andconnectivity issues.• You do not need to connect mobile subscribers toyour hot spot.• SpotEx is all about using hot spot attributes fortriggers that can discover the content.• SpotEx threats Wi-Fi hot spots just as sensors.

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SpotEx productionsEach rule looks like a production (if-then operator).The conditional part includes the following objects:Wi-Fi network identity,signal strength (optionally),time of the day (optionally),client ID (MAC-address)History of visits

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SpotEx productionsIn other words it is a set of operators like:IF network_SSID IS ‘mycafe’ ANDtime is 1pm – 2pm THEN{ present the coupon for lunch }It is like expert systemWe can use well known algorithm for theprocessing: Rete

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Implementation• Based on Android OS.• WiFiManager from Android SDK• This API let us pickup the following information:SSID - the network name.BSSID - the address of the access point.capabilities - describes the authentication,key management, and encryption schemessupported by the access point.frequency - the frequency in MHz of the channellevel - the detected signal level in dBm.

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Implementation• IF network_SSID IS ‘mycafe’ AND level > -60db AND time is 1pm – 2pm AND network_SSID ‘myStore’ is not visible THEN {present the deals for dinner}• {present the deals for dinner} is some data (information) snippet presented in the rule. Each snippet has got a title (text) and some HTML content (or a link to external site for example). Snippets are presenting coupons/discounts info for malls, news data for campuses etc.

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Client’s application • Client-side application • Shows visible networks • Shows working rules (conclusions)

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Context-aware browsing• Conclusion for rules present set of context-awaredata• De-facto users are browsing context-aware datachunks• Each data chunk is presented a a mobile web page(SpotEx creates web pages automatically when youset new rule)• SpotEx is actually context-aware browser

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Wi-Fi chat • Hyper-local communication tool based on SpotEx • Web chat and communication forum for the mobile users nearby the same Wi- Fi access point

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Future development• Markup for rules – e.g. describe context-aware dataright in HTML• Native context-aware browser: web intents• Bluetooth support• Wi-Fi direct support

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Conclusion• a new context-aware browsing model for mobileusers based on the ideas of Wi-Fi proximity.• can use any existing as well as the especiallycreated (described) Wi-Fi network as presencetrigger for discovering user-defined content• completely software based• supports ad-hoc solutions• does not require the upfront space preparations.• could be used for delivering commercial informationin malls, distributing data in Smart City projects,sharing news feeds for office centers and campuses

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About usInternational team: Russia - Latvia (Moscow –Riga – Ventspils). Big history of developinginnovative telecom and software services,international contests awardsProjects examples we are in:open API for telecom,web access for telecom data,mobile web applications,M2M applications, context-aware computing.