The problem of stroke synchronization on CatchBob! is tackled. The player now get a visual feedback (change of color from black to the player’s color) when their writing is synchronize. Immediatly after a stroke is done attemps to synchronize it with the server are done.
2MB .mov video
Busy finalizing CatchBob! on TabletPC, polishing the details and fixing the last bugs. The first experiment lasted 13 minutes with players not understanding when they caught Bob. They caught him by luck, they said.
I noticed that some players did not give full trust to the interface. Either because they syncrhonize too fast or that not all the data are synchronized or the other players do not synchronize (one player thought it was not really necessary to do it often, because she was infering things from the others’ positions and annotations). Those factors for trust are very hard to manage in a mobile application with intermittent connectivity.
Fast animation of Red player’s screen (click to enlarge):
Fast forward on the replay tool (4MB .mov file):
Animation of the screenshots taken by player Red during a CatchBob! pre-test. (Click on the image to enlarge)
I am facing network unrealiability challenges for the client/server communication on CatchBob!. It is therefor important to play in the timeout value of the client (depending on the detected connectivity). How do I set a timeout when using WSDL2Java stubs? explains how to set the timeout on the client.
Herecast provides location-based services on a WiFi device. Instead of using coordinates, it uses a symbolic naming system, it expresses the location in terms an ordinary person would use — for example, the name of the building. The data collected by the community are of type:
“World/Belgium/OVL/Evergem/Doornzele/Dipke Home” and then “00 40 05 c8 58 9a ANI/D-Link 1st floor”
Google Suggest offers suggestions as you type. It uses XmlHttpRequest technique of going back to the web server for more data while the user interacts with a page.
Freshly launched, Mobile Bristol provides an experimental test-bed for technology and user value research in pervasive mobile media.
HP Labs researchers and their partners from Bristol University developed a set of software tools that can place media files, such as sounds and images, in a location to blend in and augment a physical area. Associated software, loaded on to HP iPAQ handheld computers equipped with GPS satellite positioning, allows the user to access automatically the different media files as they move from place to place.
The system is made of an authoring tool to place the files and iPAQ-based client software to access them. The BBC used the Mobile Bristol toolkit during October 2004 to present sound extracts around the harbourside and the old centre of Bristol, which people experienced with HP iPAQs as they walked the route.
More on HP researchers broaden access to location-based services
Everybody seems to have its own way to implement the MVC. I use the Betz way (not documented yet). There are other advanced MVC techniques.
ShoutSpace now has its own project page.
