[I-mobile-u] iMobileU - Update

[Andrew Yu]

Hi Folks,

Sorry for the delay in my sending out this email. Since our last  
conference call, I've been swamped with working on the MIT Mobile Web  
2.0 and the iPhone native app prototype development. The good news is  
that hopefully we should be able to share our new work in the near  
future.

I would like to sincerely apologize to you all for the delay, but I  
wanted to assure you that MIT is committed to collaborating with you  
to develop and improve mobile applications. I intend to spend more  
time on the iMobileU initiative in the near future.

Here are the minutes from the last conference call:

Participants:
MIT: Andrew Yu and Mike Gettes
University of Washington: David Morton
University of Minnesota: Drew Stevenson and Rajeev Cyrus
Penn State University: Derek Morr

0. Quick Intro:
University of Washington: David Morton is working on the iPhone native  
app. David is using TerriblyClever (now BlackBoard's MobileEdu) as a  
stopgap measure. David is excited about the iMoibleU initiative.
(note: m.UA app is available on the iPhone App Store)

University of Minnesota: Drew and Rajeev are working on a few  
different mobile web and native applications. Interested (developing?)  
Android apps

Penn State: Derek has reviewed the MIT Mobile Web code. Faces  
challenges in getting the back-end streamlined.

1. License:
MIT License, GPL, or ECL
Question (by Andrew Yu):
The MIT Mobile Web code is currently licensed under the MIT Open  
Source License. We have been discussing other options (GPL or ECL) to  
gently steer developers to collaborate. Does it matter?

Answers:
- U of Washington – does not matter
- U of Minnesota – does not matter
- Penn State University – remain with the MIT license
- MIT (Mike Gettes): look at Educational Community License (ECL),  
which is basically an Apache 2 license where patent grant section has  
been tweaked for the educational community.


2. MIT Mobile Web Update:
Version 2.0 is under development (expected to live on 9/15)
[You are welcome to check out the development version at http://mobi2.mit.edu 
  on your mobile device.]

a. New improvements include:
- improved browser detection:
-- before: iPhone, Smartphone, Feature Phone, Computer, Spider
-- after: WebKit, Generic Touch, Basic, Computer and Spider
[note: WebKit is further split into iPhone, Android, and webOS;  
Generic Touch uses a "generic" version of the WebKit that works across  
all touch devices that are not WebKit-based; and Basic is for every  
other mobile device.]
b. Browser detection now relies more heavily on our expression  
matching algorithm to detect new browsers as WURFL (and DeviceAtlas  
that we reviewed) fails to produce meaningful results for many of the  
new devices. But, WURFL is still being used in case our algorithm does  
not catch the device. We switched to WURFL PHP (vs. Python) to  
streamline the system.
c. Personalization of Stellar (MIT's LMS)
d. Libraries (minus Search: This is a long story but we could not get  
the cooperation of WorldCat/OLCL in time to allow us to customize the  
interface)
e. X.509 Certificate support (iPhone only) for TechCASH and Libraries
f. and many others...

3. MIT SMS:
http://mobi.mit.edu/about/sms.html
- added Events Calendar and Emergency News
Question (David Morton):
How does it work and how much traction has it gotten from the users?

Answer (Andrew Yu):
MIT reserved a "common short code": 648338 (spells MITEDU) reserved  
via Neustar (http://www.neustar.biz).
An SMS aggregator (mBlox) is utilized to send and receive text  
messages between the mobile user and the MIT server (sms1.mit.edu).
sms1.mit.edu parses the incoming query and generates content (within  
160 char limit chucks). Similar interface (that the MIT Mobile Web is  
using) is used for obtaining the data from various sources within MIT.  
The server relies on MangoText server (licensed from MIT student- 
formed company that also helped with this project.)
The service is currently an "interactive" service and does not include  
a subscription/push model. There are various MIT groups (Commencement,  
Emergency -- for family and friends of students, faculty, staff, and  
Campus Tours for sending out schedule changes to student tour guides  
who do not check their email frequently) interested in the  
subscription/push model and we are looking into this for future.

4. iPhone native app
Question: Why build an iPhone native app when the Mobile Web delivers  
already delivers great content to the iPhone users?

Answer (David Morton):
Reputation and Marketing: Opportunity to share with the university  
community an actual app that people can download from the iPhone App  
store to promote the brand of the university. Will be developing  
native apps for 2 or 3 platforms
Answer (Andrew Yu):
MIT Mobile (an iPhone native app prototype):
Marketing and reputation as well as pressure from the senior MIT  
officers. But, also the additional features and capabilities of the  
native app that presents a better user experience to the end-user. In  
particular, faster loading time (especially when AT&T coverage is  
behaving "normally" in Boston area), the ability to access local  
database (no need for network connection, when AT&T's network coverage  
is not reliable), location based services, accelerometer, push  
notification, background process (except for the iPhone), etc.
(note: the Mobile web browsers for many smartphones are increasingly  
getting better to support some of the features that only native apps  
used to support. And, we will see parallel improvements in both.)

MIT been working with student developers to create MIT Mobile, a  
prototype iPhone native app that includes MIT Innovations (shake and  
see), Campus Map (6 zoom levels of map tiles, partial storage of map  
tile images on the device, ability to layer path dynamically for other  
applications such as shuttle track), Shuttle Track (with push  
notification), Stellar (personalized and with push notification),  
People Directory, and Emergency (with push notification). The app will  
likely be ready to be published by the end of 2009 unless we can find  
additional resources (both from within MIT and outside of MIT) to  
collaborate on the project. ;-)

Question (Derek):
Penn State is concerned about exposing campus map on mobile devices.  
What are other schools doing?

Answer (Andrew):
We have had concerns from the MIT Facilities for exposing floor plans,  
but the external building maps are already publicly available, so it  
was not a big deal. MIT intends to make the floor plans for some  
public buildings available for mobile applications in the future so  
that in complex buildings (like the MIT Stata Building), people can  
find rooms/offices located inside the building more easily.

5. Other Topics:
AT&T and the pricing of "Exchange" (Enterprise) data plan:
In the past, there were discussions with AT&T and Apple about the  
requirement for Exchange users to pay $45/month for the Enterprise  
Data plan on the iPhone. Since MIT is now providing Exchange service  
to students, this requirement/stance is not acceptable, especially  
since MIT people cannot use the AT&T data service that much to begin  
with (yes, the coverage situation is still not fixed). MIT would have  
to inform students to pay extra $15/month just to get their email,  
calendar, contacts, etc. on their iPhone. What we need is AT&T to say  
that $30/month standard data plan can connect to the Exchange server  
for students, faculty, and staff at MIT. What do others think about  
that?
(By the way, there is no technical limitation placed by AT&T to block  
out Exchange ActiveSync usage from the iPhone that has $30/month data  
plan. But, their official stance is that the users who do this could  
be penalized in the future at AT&T's discretion.)

Answer/Comments:
None of the other schools participating in the call have Exchange for  
students, but they would back MIT (and other schools) for trying to  
get this situation fixed.

6. Next Steps:
Monthly Conference Call

I will send out an invite to this list to arrange to schedule a time.

Have a great weekend!

Andrew
________________________________
Andrew Yu
Mobile Platform Manager and Architect
Information Services & Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Phone: 617-324-8985
Email: andrewyu at mit.edu

*** MIT Mobile Web and MIT SMS (beta) ***
Visit http://m.mit.edu from your mobile device, or
Text "help" to 648338

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