Ben Hutchings wrote:
>On Mon, Nov 11, 2002 at 08:42:21AM +0900, Sam Joseph wrote:
><snip>
>
>
>>The Japanese P2P group Jnutella's avowed aim is to get real p2p working
>>over keitai, but are still stuck on waiting for the right kind of
>>hardware. There is as yet, nothing that gives developers a programmatic
>>interface for direct handset-handset communication (i.e. not through the
>>base station).
>>
>>
><snip>
>
>You can definitely do this between Symbian OS phones with Bluetooth,
>and presumably by IR as well. I haven't tried this myself as I don't
>have one, but apparently you can offer up files for download by anyone
>in range.
>
>
Well I think the Bluetooth phones don't give you programmatic access to
the bluetooth environment. Or at least the Sony Ericsson bluetooth
phones didn't have Java in them, and only allowed transfer of certain
items, such as phone numbers, rather than phones in general. But maybe
Symbian OS phone with Bluetooth are something else again? Is there
programmatic access, or support for general fiel swapping.
As regards the IR, yes, it seems that can work and we have been
discussing that on the list, but it would seem that it suffers frrom
restricted range, and again arbitarty files cannot be exchanged.
Using my JPhone SD card I can swap images etc with other people by
handing them the SD card. I guess what would be nice was some kind of
SD card compatible wireless plugin that would allow me to swap the
contents of my phone with anyone in range.
On another note, what I'd really like to see in phones is short range
digital walkie-talkie functionality. Naturally it won't happen cos then
the network people couldn't charge you for the packets, but it would be
very convenient for when you get out of range of a tower, and when you
are within 500m or so of someone and would prefer not to have to pay for
the tower jump. Like when you and your friend get separated in a crowd
or busy shopping area for example.
Of course the real problem is creating a business model for
walkie-talkie functionality, cos once you sell the handset you don't
make any more money, right?
CHEERS> SAM
Received on Tue Nov 12 04:25:57 2002