In this paper we introduce the Inverted Browser, a novel approach to enable mobile users to view content from their personal devices on public displays. The Inverted Browser is a network service to start and control a browser that is then used to view the content. In contrast to a traditional Web browser, which runs on the client device and pulls content from a server, content is pushed to the Inverted Browser from a personal data source upon user input. This approach allows a wide variety of personal content to be viewed by facilitating symbiotic relationships between mobile devices and intelligent displays in the environment. In addition, this approach exploits the significant investments in Web browsers and related technologies.
Our initial Inverted Browser prototype is based on a Web Services wrapper around a traditional Web browser. We compare the Inverted Browser with alternative approaches based on VNC thin client technology and Bluetooth profiles.
Our experiments show that the Inverted Browser approach is superior in terms of user convenience, ease of use, energy consumption, and privacy. We expect hardware improvements to further reduce interaction latencies, an aspect where the other solutions presently have a slight edge.
By: Mandayam Raghunath; Nishkam Ravi; Marcel C. Rosu; Chandra Narayanaswami
Published in: RC23719 in 2005
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