dotMobi's device database at Mobile Monday London
Last Monday (8 Oct 2007) I had a chance to present our device database initiative at the Mobile Monday event in London. It has been a great chance for me to introduce our product and our vision to a large number of companies that are very interested in the topic and certainly have a view on it given their day-to-day experience with fragmentation in the mobile space.
Mobile Monday London kindly made available all the presentations that have been given.
One thing that I don't like about watching a presentation online is that you miss a lot of the extra information that was provided in the speech. I would like to take a chance to add something to the presentation that you will see online.
Every company that has tried to start a business in the mobile space has soon faced the problem of knowing what devices can or cannot do. The specific problem with mobile devices is that new phones and new software is released every week, so no matter how well you build your recognition system you're always running after the new gadgets. We think that a new approach should be taken.
We have identified three main elements, a test suite, a web site and an API.
The test suite is composed of two parts, a web administration that allows us to create and manage tests. The second part is a site that is the collection of the tests that have been defined. Users, anyone anywhere in the world, will have a chance to see the test page or content and let us know, with a click, if the test was passed or not. Different users will be able to access the same test in different contexts. All the results will be stored in a database. We believe that the empirical approach is the way to achieve quality and provide an authoritative source of data.
Once you have created data through the test suite you probably want to verify what you have tested so far. To do so we are providing a web site that will allow anyone to browse all the results collected. You can search for devices and see their properties and values in a layout that is optimized for the search of this kind of information.
The web interface is also going to be the core part of our community. We think that projects like Wikipedia have shown that the community is capable of achieving great quality through cooperation. Wikipedia is different from our device database, we want to collect facts about mobile devices and this requires a slightly different approach. We want our community to contribute information through the test suite, of course and through the web site. Metadata about the source and how data was collected is stored. It will be possible to see who provided what information, when and how. Now the juicy part: we are building an intelligent system to get consensus about what a property value should be. This means that all the contributions that have been received will be put together, weighted and a final result will be taken. A real world example, if 10 users say that the screen height of the Motorola C980 is 220 pixel and 50 users say it's 176, we will determine that the screen height is 176 pixel. We will always keep track of all the values that have been provided and we will keep working on the algorithm to make sure that it is always working at its best.
There will also be a lightweight process to let the members of our community to drive the evolution of the device database. The information stored in the database should in fact be exactly what you need for your application. We will start with the "Core Vocabulary" defined by the W3C's DDWG, but we know that there is a lot more about devices, our users are invited to actively participate to the creation and maintenance of properties and tests. The site will integrate with the existing community of mobiForge.
This should be the most scalable and open approach that we can think of, the database is truly in your hands and we're providing the infrastructure to build it. We think that more active members is better.
The last piece, the one that every developer is looking for, is the API. We are working with the W3C to define a recommendation to build an API that can be open and standards-driven. The API is going to be simple to install, configure and most of all to use. We will provide it in the most common programming languages to start with and are already planning to expand later.
The API should let you do all you need to create your mobile application, from device recognition to the details about a property. See the W3C DDWG homepage for more information about this.
Not only, the API will be able to automatically synchronize with the central database so that you can have fresh information at all times. Frequency and other local parameters will be configurable, of course.
We think that this platform should take you from a device that you don't know to offering an optimized experience within just a few steps, test, verify, implement. All at your fingertip.
Think of all the open sources of information plus the proprietary databases all in the same place, all together, it's the mobile community gathering in a single place to share information and knowledge for a better experience.
See the presentation here.
Posted by atrasatti 2 years 46 weeks ago
Andrea Trasatti is Director of Technology Strategy at dotMobi where among the other things he is leading the design and development of DeviceAtlas.
Prior to this Andrea has been a system administrator and a software developer for more than 10 years and a consultant for more than 5 years.
In Italy Andrea started developing the first WAP sites in late 1999 when the first WAP phone was about to be released. Since then he has been developing some of the most innovative services for mobile devices.
Andrea has also actively participated to W3C work first as an invited expert and later as author of one of the documents that was published by the Device Descriptions Working Group.
Posted by icemobile 2 years ago
Hi,
Just wanted to say that this is a great idea..
A very important point for this API should be the speed, as the mobile internet isn't really fast yet (UMTS ain't so well spread yet) so users do not want to wait ages until a website loads because it's using some api to get the right sizes images for their phone (as they won't even know that)...
Another addition to this might be a WAP site driven test. Many companies (I assume) have their Mobile web specialist which use real live phones to test their websites, from experience I can tell you they often work with wrong data (from WURFL for example) from the database and then when they test it doesn't look good.
Then they search for the right data pass this on the the tech team which have to change the data.. this is a LOT of time loss (and frustration)...
Now a specially crafted wap site to set a lot of data for a phone just by selecting the right looks might make things a lot easier. I'm not sure if I'm totally clear here but a small example of my thoughts:
Say you have some uncommon Motorola phone (even the modern Moto's are terrible!) and you don't have the correct data on what this phone supports
you go to a dotMobi wap site (extended of the project you are describing)
You get a number of pictures in your browser and you just select the one that has a perfect fit
Then go to the next step:
You see some elements and just select the ones that are shown correctly (using radio buttons for example)
All that data is stored in database and directly available for the rest of the community. (Using the same directives as you described so as 50 people make the one choice and 10 people make other choice it's obvious which one to give out)
BUT of course always make room for exceptions as providers often have regional specialized browsers and if 50 people from the US say it's like this and 10 people from The Netherlands say it's otherwise this could lead to problems, but I think this can be catched by proper catching of phone headers.
Just my 2 cent.
With best regards,
IceMobile.comSteven vd. Peijl
Posted by icemobile 2 years ago
Looking at your MM presentation it looks like you already had much of the same idea :)
Great work.
IceMobile.comPosted by atrasatti 2 years ago
Steven, the test-suite is the place for what you described. We will also allow users to post the results directly from the device when possible and store it in real-time.
Andrea Trasatti
Director of Device Initiatives, mTLD
Blog: Andrea Trasatti's tech notes and more
Posted by toerholm 2 years ago
Hi
Is it possible to get hands on the mobile monday mobi presentation anywhere ?
Im able to download the presentation from the mobile Monday site, but power point cant open it.
I had a collegee with similar experiences.
Im very interested in any news about this device database.
I saw somewhere that the database were supposed to released late 2007, is this still the case ? Is there a more specific date set now ?
What will be the terms for using the database ?
What will the cost be for using it ?
Can it be downloaded like Wurfl,.. or is it an online service etc.. ?
Another issue,.. I admit that the usecase is somewhat special, anyway.. I will try to explain a little
Im working in the business of providing content via Bluetooth.
I have two inputs for the database.
1. I would be great if it could reflect if the device has Bluetooth support or not.
2. My Company is sending content to mobiles via Bluetooth access points.
We have some challenges deciding if certain content types will be accepted via Bluetooth or not..
Example, most phones supports reception of .jar files via the cellular network, but not all phones support .jar via Bluetooth.
Its possible to look at the general formats supported by the phone, buts its not always good enogh.
Thanks & Best regards
Lars Tørholm
Posted by gabrielpalomino 2 years ago
Hello Andrea,
I am consultant, producer and developer of mobile projects, currently working in a project that involves mobile web (wap, xhtml, chtml) , J2ME and Android.
I am looking for the right technology to handle the devicedatabase, I need to know screen sizes, handset platform, java version...
I have develop the prototype using WURFL, works very well, what advantage offers me .MOBI device database ?
I have near 9000 handsets registered in WURFL, what amount offers me .MOBI ? When is going to be available ?
Many thanks.
Gabriel Palomino
Linkedin
Gabriel Palomino Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielpalomino Blogs http://www.mobilemediaconsult.com http://www.activityshot.com Nokia Champion http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/forum_nokia_champion/forum_nokia_champions/Gabriel_Palomino.http://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielpalomino
Blogs
http://www.mobilemediaconsult.com
http://www.activityshot.com
Nokia Champion
http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/forum_nokia_champion/forum_nokia_champions/Gabriel_Palomino.
Posted by atrasatti 2 years ago
Hello Gabriel,
glad to hear you are working on some innovative project.
WURFL is certainly a great resource and covers many aspects of mobile devices such as J2ME, MMS and more.
Our project will start covering mobile web mostly and this means XHTML, CSS, images and so on. Your project seems to have a broader approach and need information about Java versions and so on.
What we are trying to achieve with our database is a better coverage of web-related properties and a higher level of confidence in the data you get. The database will use many different sources and also the help of the community to build a large konwledgebase that is the result of the collective thinking. It is certainly a long term plan that includes extensions over time both in depth (more properties) and trust (more sources and better control).
Andrea Trasatti
Director of Device Initiatives, mTLD
Posted by atrasatti 2 years ago
Lars,
I have uploaded a PDF version of the presentation on one of our servers. You can get it here, dotMobi device databast @ Mobile Monday London.
Let me know if you have further problems.
Andrea Trasatti
Director of Device Initiatives, mTLD
Posted by public DDR 2 years ago
Hi Steven,
I think you've added some excellent points to this. Your 2 cents are worth a lot more in my opinion. We've just launched publicDDR.com which is a free public repository for devices. What we are trying to achieve with our database is a better coverage of web-related properties and a higher level of confidence in the data you get. We're doing a great job for developers that need data for porting and we'll have marketing statistic data also (things like market share, popular apps etc.) so you'll get the full spectrum of properties for the device.
It's a community driven solution with some neat mechanisms to get the data to be as clean as possible and works according to W3C standards. There's also a working API, your own instance of the database to incorporate your own version of the truth - I really think it's the best source for DDR right now and hopefully in the future.
As I said, I really think you know your stuff and I'd appreciate it if you could take a look and tell me what you think.
All the best,
Gil Dotan
Posted by atrasatti 2 years ago
If you have problems downloading this presentation, please check out this other blog post with links to all my presentations in 2007: 2007 presentations round up.
Andrea Trasatti
Director of Device Initiatives, mTLD