Smart remote control for the office or home computer 07-036

Problem

You can do a great many things with a cell phone – call up e-mails,  display appointments, and download documents from the Internet over a mobile connection while on the road. However, this mobile data retrieval system still leaves much to be desired.

Before very long, a jumble of appointments, e-mails and documents has piled up back in the office, while you were away on vacation or on the road.

Smart Solution

Research scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology SIT in Darmstadt Germany want to put an end to this chaos.

Business travelers will soon be able to access all the information on their own computers from a cell phone. A new software program makes it possible to swiftly find documents, appointments and e-mails at any time and to forward them immediately - all from a cell phone.

In a project entitled MIDMAY, they have transformed the cell phone into a kind of remote control for the computer workstation, enabling travelers to access all information on their own computers while away. It is possible to locate documents on the remote computer, attach them to e-mails and send them directly to any desired address. A few keystrokes are all that’s required to send the data on its way. Whereas in the past, when you wanted to send an important document to someone you had met at a conference, you could only promise to send it the next day, it will soon be possible to transfer the document via MIDMAY while the conference is still in progress.

At the heart of the smart remote-control system is a server, the home base, which accesses the data stored on the workstation. What makes this system different is the way in which it cleverly interlinks the wealth of different information, making it possible to search for information on your own computer via various search paths while away from the office. If you have forgotten who has already been sent a certain attachment, you can extend your search by entering the date, for instance. Thanks to a link with the calendar data, the number of mails can thus be limited and the required message is easily found.

"MIDMAY not only permits rapid access to information, though,« says MIDMAY project manager Jens Heider of the SIT. The best thing about it is that, for the first time ever, you will be able to use your cell phone as a control center for your own digital knowledge base."

The researchers have developed not only the home base, but also a program for the cell phone that can operate reliably even in areas with no reception.

"One of our main concerns was to clearly display the information on the tiny monitor and to navigate with as few keystrokes as possible," Heider adds.

ETA: 2007

A first prototype will be on display at CeBIT, which takes place in Hanover from March 15 to 21, 2007 (Hall 9, Stand B36).

Afterthought:

...sounds like a disrutive technology winner to me.....what do you think?

This was a highly predictable step. I'm surprised it took so long to conceive, since cell phones have been around for ages it seems. This should have been a capability that could have been in cell phones right from the start. The technology was there but no one thought of it, until now.

First there was human-2-human (H2H) communication possible with a regular or cell phone. The obvious next step is machine-2-machine (M2M) and human-2-machine (H2M or M2H)communication along the technology evolutionary spectrum, according to the Technology Evolution Matrix, that is part of our Opportunity Clinic (c) workshop. I had predicted this a long time ago.

....of course security now becomes the over-riding concern here.

What's next along this train of thought?  What's the next application of H2M?....well that's easy...almost a no brainer. I can think of at least four off the bat. I bet people in these sectors are starting to salivate right now.

Here's one visual hint right now.

© 2005-2007

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

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