Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Partners for SpotEx


"The customer walks into a shopping center and activates his/her WiFi browser (free, branded, downloadable app) to see which stores offers what e.g. trials, demo's, vouchers, special offers; right now!" - our partner Clicode presents SpotEx.

Btw, they (Clicode) offers a lot of QR-code based solutions too. Some of them are also based on components from our QR-code suite.

Monday, January 30, 2012

About connected cars

An interesting stack from Delicious - Connected cars - the next big thing

And our own add-on: Emergency communications for drivers

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Smart Cities

Interesting event in Amsterdam and interesting definition for Smart City applications.

It looks like our SpotEx is a perfect fit for Smart City applications.

About Facebook fans

Free WiFi for check-in. Looks like this, is not it?

"Why doesn’t everyone do this? It is clearly a better return than some CPM ad that users are dying to get away from… it’s relevant, not spammy and surprisingly welcome." - sure :)

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

About customized check-ins for Facebook Places

You are welcome to check out a new version of our mashup Places from Facebook.

Lets you search for places, show them on the map, copy locations to mobile, check-in anywhere as well as prepare mobile web pages for customized check-ins.

You can directly pass the following parameters to the basic URL:

lat - latitude
lng - longitude
q - query for search

For example, Facebook in London

For customized check-in place owner (or advertising/marketing agency, for example) can define all the aspects of check-in - data to be posted on user's wall, data to be returned as a confirmation, Google Analytics code for stats monitoring etc. This version provides own analytics for check-ins too. And of course you still can use Facebook’s dashboard for places pages - mashup creates standard check-ins for Facebook.

In other words – any small business can create public (or private) "Foursquare-like" system for own visitors. Using all the power of Facebook’s user base.

P.S. See also QRpon – customized check-ins for Facebook

P.P.S. and here you can see Places from Google for the same area.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Random Images

Our JSOS collection is growing again. Random Image servlet lets you display random images in your Java web applications.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Places from tweets

Yet another our mashup has been updated - Location from Twitter.

Usually, the bundle Twitter + Maps always means mapping twits and show them on the map. Yes, we have such mashups too (see for example, Photo map или Local twitter). But here everything is vice versa. It is just a reverse task.

Suppose you are reading a great geo-located twit. Just a status associated with some place (location). In Twitter's web client you can see that place and an appropriate icon just below the message. How to get that place info and save/bookmark it on your phone? It is what our mashup - Places from Twitter is for.

It is very similar to our Location bookmark, but with Twitter status instead of address. Mashup Locations from Twitter also creates QR code for mobile map. And mobile map describes a place from Twitter. And here we are using Geo Messages again.

The usage is simple. Just open in Twitter’s web interface any geo-enabled twit and copy its URL to mashup’s form. Also you can save the following link Place from Twitter in your bookmarks and simply select that bookmark on any opened page with geo-enabled twit (it is so called bookmarklet).

And of course, any QR code created with this mashup could be placed anywhere – on your site/blog, Facebook wall etc. You can even print it and place on the physical wall. Mashup provides HTML code you need for embedding QR code image.

DLD 2012

We continue to share links for monitoring the interesting events in Twitter. Now it is DLD, Munich, 2011



/via Geo Messages

P.S. and the same in Twi-gazeta:   DLD

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Closed Graph API

Bad news from Google about Social Graph API: "This API makes information about the public connections between people on the web available for developers. The API isn’t experiencing the kind of adoption we’d like, and is being deprecated as of today. It will be fully retired on April 20, 2012." - from here

Sad. It is actually a good toolkit that lets for example provide WHOIS service for Twitter (e.g. search for other resources related to your new follower) or find more sites linked to the given URL

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Four Cool Ways to Use a VNC Server

"In this article, I’m going to put together four remote-control systems that you can use to control various entertainment and display systems throughout your home, from a single, central computer. This is especially useful for those of you that have a "main" computer in your living room or living area that everyone uses." - very practical solutions for remote monitoring.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Data Mining: Finding Similar Items and Users

A good introduction: Euclidean Distance, similarity, Pearson Correlation Coefficient - see it here.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Lists in Twitter

Our mashup Lists from Twitter has been updated. Lets you extract popular topics from Twitter lists. Just set a name for the list (twitter_name/list_name) on the mashup’s page or directly provide it as a parameter:

http://tlist.linkstore.ru?u=some_list

For example:

abava/mobile
Scobleizer/geolocation

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Proximity applications

An interesting presentation:


Interesting by the way what they can do with iOS that prohibits Wi-Fi scanning.

Our own project in this area is SpotEx

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Proximity as a service

Indoor positioning at this moment is a hot area for LBS applications. There is no common denominator for indoor location but technically Wi-Fi based solutions are probably prevailing.

Wi-Fi based approach for indoor positioning is always based on the net of basic nodes (Wi-Fi tags for example) with known locations. Based on that we can deploy some triangulation for getting position for our Wi-Fi device. Actually, it is similar to cell-id, where Wi-Fi tags play the role of base stations.

So, the main problem is the need for some preliminary preparation steps for Wi-Fi network we are going to use for indoor positioning. And what if we need some dynamic solutions? It is actually a starting point for our SpotEx (Spot expert) project.

What if we will take from traditional indoor positioning systems the first step only – Wi-Fi networks detection? Obviously, if our mobile phone can see some Wi-Fi access point we are somewhere nearby. And the word “nearby” actually dictates that we should use proximity services rather than traditional location based services. That is probably fine because the proximity (being nearby) let us directly provide the relevant content to our users, without the preliminary geo-calculations. But we need some tools that let us add measurement to the word “nearby”. Similar to the geo-location tools we need services for proximity based operations.

Our SpotEx model presents one of possible tools for the proximity services. And as the second step in our “new indoor approach” we will add the ability describe some content that depends on the Wi-Fi networks visibility. We will get some kind of context aware браузер – our user will see content depends on the exiting Wi-Fi access points. Actually, we can add rules for the visibility where we can use Wi-Fi, time, probability, history of access etc.

We do not need in this case any preliminary preparation for that network. We can proceed even dynamically added nodes. For example, Wi-Fi access point we can associate our rules with could be Wi-Fi access point opened by demand right on another mobile phone.

Once again – it is not about access to some Wi-Fi network. Access point could be protected and closed for public access. The only thing Spot Expert is based on is its visibility. Access point plays a role of sensor (trigger) here. If our mobile user can see that network he/she is nearby.

Current implementation provides Android application for end users and web client (including mobile web) for creating rules and setting content nodes. See Spot expert site for details and application downloading.

Possible use cases are: delivering commercial information (deals, discounts, coupons) in malls, hyper-local news data, data discovery in Smart City projects, personal news sites etc

There is also a special simplified version prepared for retail area – In Mall Notes. Contact us for demo access.

A side effect - WiFi chat. This service provides the predefined elements of content: web chat and discussion groups connected to some visible Wi-Fi access point. Suppose we have some Wi-Fi network in train (bus etc.) WiFi chat application provides communication tools for people in the net’s area. You can get more details in our article about WiFi chat.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Local chat and forum

Our mobile web application WiFi chat has been updated again. What kind of object (real or virtual) can we use for joining together mobile users? We are not talking here about social networks members. We are looking a way for creating group chat. Here, for example, is a short list for several our applications:

City forum - discussions (forums) linked to places (POI - point of interest)
Geo forum - the similar to above (also mobile forums) but linked to location
Mobile forum - lets you add discussions to any physical object.
City chat - web chat linked to any POI (point of interest)
Geo chat - web chat linked to some location

And here is our new idea - Wi-Fi Chat. Forum and chat linked to some Wi-Fi network. It is a mobile application that lets you see available (visible) Wi-Fi networks and link (attach) discussions and chats to them. We are not talking about connecting to Wi-Fi networks. We are using any Wi-Fi network just as a sensor. If you can see it from your mobile, you are somewhere near. We can call it Wi-Fi proximity. That is an idea. All people seeing the same network are in the some proximity. So, they could have some common points for the discussions.

Just one interesting remark – Wi-Fi access point could be opened right on the mobile phone. And with WiFi chat application this phone will play a role of presence sensor uniting (combining together) local people for the communications.

Technically this application uses cloud forums from Disqus and web chat from Coldbeans.

You can load .apk right from Android Market:

com.wifichat

Also you can download .apk file right from our server: http://servletsuite.com/WiFiChat.apk. Here is an appropriate QR-code:

QR code for WiFiChat

WiFi chat, actually, is a side project for our new development - SpotEx. This application uses ideas of proximity as a service and lets you attach (link) your own data to Wi-Fi access points. We will describe it separately.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

About Open Graph

"Facebook’s ambitious plan to weave together the actions we take across the web and engineer a social network replete with frictionless sharing is finally ready to be deployed, VentureBeat has learned. The remaining pieces of Facebook’s new Open Graph are in the final stages of testing and are nearing release" - from here.

I am really not sure, why frictionless sharing is good. If I just read something it does not mean that I will automatically share that with my friends. And it is not about privacy, it is about spam :)

P.S. And here you can share your search query with your FB circle: Ask friends. And it requires friction :)

Monday, January 09, 2012

JSOS ver. 7.60

Coldbeans Software announced the next milestone in JSOS (servlets office suite) development. JSOS reaches the version 7.60.

This largest collection of Java servlets and filters provides 150+ "out of the box" components ready for building web-pages. One of the biggest parts is the rich set of filters. Package includes such components as XML and WML transcoding, access restriction, traffic restriction, caching, profiling etc. All components are configurable, so you may incorporate them into your own design frameset. Components from JSOS do support mobile web, so the same set of components can be used for wireless users too. At this moment JSOS provides a largest set of servlets and filters over the Net.

Check out the latest version of Java Servlets Office Suite here: http://www.servletsuite.com

Friday, January 06, 2012

Customized check-ins for Facebook places

You are welcome to check out a new version of our mashup Places from Facebook.

Lets you search for places, show them on the map, copy locations to mobile, check-in anywhere as well as prepare mobile web pages for customized check-ins. For customized check-in place owner (or advertising/marketing agency, for example) can define all the aspects of check-in - data to be posted on user's wall, data to be returned as a confirmation, Google Analytics code for stats monitoring etc.

You can directly pass the following parameters to the basic URL:

lat - latitude
lng - longitude
q - query for search

For example, Facebook in London

P.S. See also QRpon – customized check-ins for Facebook

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Hyper-local chat and forum

Our mobile web application WiFi chat has been updated again. What kind of object (real or virtual) can we use for joining together mobile users? We are not talking here about social networks members. We are looking a way for creating group chat. Here, for example, is a short list for several our applications:

City forum - discussions (forums) linked to places (POI - point of interest)
Geo forum - the similar to above (also mobile forums) but linked to location
Mobile forum - lets you add discussions to any physical object.
City chat - web chat linked to any POI (point of interest)
Geo chat - web chat linked to some location

And here is our new idea - WiFiChat. Forum and chat linked to some WiFi network. It is a mobile application that lets you see available (visible) Wi-Fi networks and link (attach) discussions and chats to them. We are not talking about connecting to WiFi networks. We are using any WiFi network just as a sensor. If you can see it from your mobile, you are somewhere near. We can call it WiFi proximity. That is an idea. All people seeing the same network are in the some proximity. So, they could have some common points for the discussions.

Just one interesting remark – WiFi access point could be opened right on the mobile phone. And with WiFiChat application this phone will play a role of presence sensor uniting (combining together) local people for the communications.

Technically this application uses cloud forums from Disqus and web chat from Coldbeans.

You can load .apk right from Android Market:

com.wifichat

Also you can download .apk file right from our server: http://servletsuite.com/WiFiChat.apk. Here is an appropriate QR-code:

QR code for WiFiChat

WiFiChat, actually, is a side project for our new development - SpotEx. This application lets you attach (link) your own data to WiFi access points. We will describe it separately.