2009 Theme

The theme for ODCSSS 2009 "Technologies for bridging the digital-physical divide: sensing the environment". Each ODCSSS student is engaged in a research project with a faculty member and mentor which provides them an opportunity to experience research. The selection of interns is highly competitive but we encourage anyone interested in research who is eligible to apply.

Using your mobile phone to control large screen public displays

Odysseus: 
2009

Information overload is synonymous with the digital age. Information comes at us from all angles and increasingly displays in shop windows and interactive advertising at bus stops are being used to encourage passers-by and people who are waiting for buses, to take notice. What if, when you were waiting for a bus you could interact with the bus stop display to see information you wanted to see, what if you could control the navigation through this information content using your mobile phone....

In this project you will concentrate on developing a mobile controlled large screen display application. This large screen aspect will feature a user friendly, public aware application which encapsulates the important parts/attributes of the YouTube and Twitter websites. This application will consist of a Java-based GUI and will have the capability to deal with multiple users.   As part of this project, a web based mobile application will also be developed to act as the "controller" for the large screen application. A user will be able to "connect" to the large screen display and control the content through use of there mobile phone. The controller interface needs to be simple and intuitive, yet have the capability to control the on-screen application effectively.

The candidate should have an excellent knowledge of Java and web-based programming techniques including client-server applications. An interest in GUI development and web site APIs would be an advantage.

Relevance of the Project to Current Research Theme: 

This project will focus on facilitating interactions between physical and digital spaces by harnessing a combination of personal user interface (via mobile phone) and public interface (via a public display), using proximity sensing techniques (e.g. bluetooth sensing) to automatically respond and adapt to individuals.

Demonstratable Outcome: 

Wk 1  Familiarisation with prototype MobiDisplay architecture.
Wk 2  Development and test of MobiDisplay Interface 1 (e.g. YouTube)
Wk 3  Development and test of MobiDisplay Interface 2 (e.g. Twitter)
Wk 4 Generalise key features from Interfaces 1 and 2 with a view to developing a more generic      MobiDisplay interface toolkit.
Wk 5 - 7 Development of MobiDisplay Interface toolkit (this is basically a set of tools that facilitate the rapid development of mobidisplay 'apps')
Wk 8 - 10 Development of enhanced MobiDisplay apps as demos
Wk 11 Writeup
Wk 12 Poster & Presentation

Supervisors and Mentors: 
Dr. Kevin McCarthy
Prof. Barry Smyth
Required Equipment: 

- 1 internet enabled mobile phone (more may be sourced)
- 1 workstation for software development with large display
- 1 software development environment (Eclipse)
- 1 implementation system with large screen display for demonstration purposes

Host: 
UCD