Client Architecture
After all our initial research we finally started working on the implementation of the Talking-Points client. We got three motivated developers (Josh Rychlinski, Travis Donggun Yoo and Peter Kretschman) working on it and hop to be able to present first results very soon. The plan for our project prototype is to develop the client software in Java and run it on an OQO model 02, an “Ultra Mobile PC” (UMPC) running Windows XP. Using Java the software should be fairly easily portable to mobile platforms like Java ME (Java Mobile Edition) or Google’s Android plattform. The initial release is planned to be composed of 5 components:
- TagReader - detects nearby tagged locations.
- ClientMessageHandler - manages the communication with the server
- ClientDataModel - interprets the location information from the server
- GUI (Graphical User Interface) & SUI (Speech User Interface) - present the location information to user and allow him to navigate through it
So using the client in practice would result in the following interaction between the components:
- User comes near a tagged location
- TagReader detects the presence of the location and gets its identification information (in our case the MAC address of the Bluetooth beacon)
- TagReader invocates a HTTP request for location information to the server (TP2s) through the ClientMessageHandler
- Server responds with location information in XML format
- ClientMessageHandler passes response to ClientDataModel
- ClientDataModel parses the XML and create a Location object
- Location object is presented by one of the two user interface modules (either read to the user of displayed on the screen of the mobile device)
- User can navigate through the location information (either by voice commands like “menu”, “more”, “skip” or by user controls like buttons and forms)
So much for the broad plan. We started working on the individual modules and hope to be able to piece them together to a working prototype that will be a realistic visualization of the idea behind Talking-Points. As always feedback about the client architecture is very welcome.
