Appear
Encyclopedia
Context awareness
Context awareness
Context awareness is defined complementary to location awareness. Whereas location may serve as a determinant for resident processes, context may be applied more flexibly with mobile computing with any moving entities, especially with bearers of smart communicators...
is the use of situational information aiming at reducing information overload and ensuring users have the information when and where they need it. WLAN is used for sending and receiving data, as well as positioning the user. Other context information such as user profile, network bandwidth, device type can be collected in order to refine the services presented to the user.
A recent research by IDC
International Data Corporation
International Data Corporation is a market research and analysis firm specializing in information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology. IDC is a subsidiary of International Data Group...
has shown that companies in travel and transportation, the public sector and telecommunications — including Nederlandse Spoorwegen
Nederlandse Spoorwegen
Nederlandse Spoorwegen , or NS, is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands.Its trains operate over the tracks of the Dutch national railinfrastructure, operated by ProRail, which was split off from NS in 2003...
(Dutch Rail), RATP (Paris subway), SNCF
SNCF
The SNCF , is France's national state-owned railway company. SNCF operates the country's national rail services, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network...
(French railway), Connex (Groupe Veolia Environnement), SL (Stockholm subway), the University of Geneva
University of Geneva
The University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland.It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin, as a theological seminary and law school. It remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it...
, the city of Kista
Kista
Kista is a district of Stockholm Municipality in Sweden. Located northwest of central Stockholm, Kista is divided by the Stockholm Metro blue line into a western part which is primarily a working class and middle class residential area, and an eastern part occupied by commercial ventures, mostly...
, Sweden and Orange Business Services have started to deploy context-aware services for their employees, and are considering deploying similar services for their public users, leveraging the launch of the new generation of GSM/WLAN dualphones.
The company is privately held and headquartered in Kista
Kista
Kista is a district of Stockholm Municipality in Sweden. Located northwest of central Stockholm, Kista is divided by the Stockholm Metro blue line into a western part which is primarily a working class and middle class residential area, and an eastern part occupied by commercial ventures, mostly...
, Sweden and is one of the new generation of telecom startups created after the IT market downturn of 2001.
History
Appear's foundation is the result of the cooperation between 3 universities: Harvard Business SchoolHarvard Business School
Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
(HBS), M.I.T. MediaLab
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
(MIT) and Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH).
In 2000, initial research was conducted on context-aware services and local wireless broadband networks both at KTH and HBS, under the project name "Bluesolid". In Stockholm, a team of KTH engineers designed the first prototype of the mobile middleware platform.
In 2001, Bluesolid was renamed Appear Networks and established its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden.
Products
The Appear Platform (AppearIQ) adds a layer of context-aware technology to existing enterprise WLAN infrastructure or wide-area networks. It gathers context of use data and builds a model based on the information needs of end-users. Available services are filtered against this profile to determine what data is relevant, and this information is then proactively pushed to the wireless device.The solution is IP
Internet Protocol
The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...
based and
compatible with PDAs
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
, smartphone
Smartphone
A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...
s, TabletPCs
Tablet computer
A tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a complete mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant, integrated into a flat touch screen and primarily operated by touching the screen...
, UMPCs and laptop
Laptop
A laptop, also called a notebook, is a personal computer for mobile use. A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device and speakers into a single unit...
s.
The Appear Context Engine (ACE) gathers all known information about the device, the user and his context including physical location,
date/time, device type, user roles, network IP address range, user locale and other customized context providers, e.g. temperature, available battery, etc.
The context engine derives a description of the services that should be available on the device and passes it to the modules
deployed on top of the ACE.
Appear provides several context-aware modules such as push/provisioning, synchronization and device management.
The modules compare the current state of the device with the context-aware services set out for the device and order the adaptive client to update the corresponding services on the device. Context information is used throughout the entire life-cycle of the service: selection based on context, filtering of individual services and enhancement of services at boot or runtime.
Referenced projects
- Nederlandse SpoorwegenNederlandse SpoorwegenNederlandse Spoorwegen , or NS, is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands.Its trains operate over the tracks of the Dutch national railinfrastructure, operated by ProRail, which was split off from NS in 2003...
(Dutch Rail) Railpocket project : 10 000 Wi-Fi/GPRS enabled handheld devices for NS staff. - SL (Stockholm subway) Uppkopplade Medarbetare project : SL mobile workforce equipped with Wi-FiWi-FiWi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
enabled PDAPDAA PDA is most commonly a Personal digital assistant, also known as a Personal data assistant, a mobile electronic device.PDA may also refer to:In science, medicine and technology:...
s for customer information. - RATP (Paris Subway & Buses) Wireless employee project : customer information applications on mobile devices.
- SNCFSNCFThe SNCF , is France's national state-owned railway company. SNCF operates the country's national rail services, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network...
(French Rail): Appear IQ technology component for the multimedia portal and Internet access on SNCF’s TGV high-speed train services.
European projects
- MIDAS is a STRePStrepStrep or STReP may refer to:*An abbreviation for Streptococcus, a bacterial genus*An abbreviation for Streptococcal pharyngitis, an infectious disease...
(Specific Targeted Research Project) project under the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme, focussing on "Mobile and Wireless Systems and Platforms beyond 3G". - SIMS is a STRePStrepStrep or STReP may refer to:*An abbreviation for Streptococcus, a bacterial genus*An abbreviation for Streptococcal pharyngitis, an infectious disease...
project under the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme. SIMS aims to provide tools for design and validation of service components with semantic interfaces. - MUSIC is an Integrated Project under the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme. MUSIC aims to provide an open platform that makes it technically and commercially feasible for the wider IT industry to develop innovative mobile applications.
Awards
- Appear and Nederlandse SpoorwegenNederlandse SpoorwegenNederlandse Spoorwegen , or NS, is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands.Its trains operate over the tracks of the Dutch national railinfrastructure, operated by ProRail, which was split off from NS in 2003...
(Dutch Rail) win the 2007 Cisco Networkers Award as Best Mobility and Wireless Project of the Year . - Kista Science City, using Appear’s context-aware software infrastructure, awarded best-practice for Technology Innovation at Digital Cities Convention 2006 .
- Appear Awarded Gold and Silver in 2006 Mobile Star Awards .
- Appear wins Best Enterprise Wi-Fi Product award at the Wireless Broadband Innovation Awards 2006 .
- Appear wins Best Enterprise Solution awards at Syntec Informatique/France Telecom Innovation Awards for the RATP (Paris subway & buses) employee project .