Web 2.0 to go totally mobile with Fraunhofer Fokus

The organisation launched its innovation at IFA 2008, the consumer electronics show currently running in Berlin. According to David Linner, a researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute, Fokus’ Mobile Widget Runtime platform is a rapid, easy and efficient way to bring web applications (widgets) to mobile phones, while also equipping them with all the functions of modern telephony. He says it can be deployed as a stand-alone platform, or be embedded in existing applications for further extensions. The result: new functions can now be added to running web operations, without any need to know details of the base application. Says Linner: “Shared user experience, mobility and location-dependency are all key features of Web 2.0. On top of this comes the fact that Web 2.0 services generally must be rapid to implement and easy to change –in moves that frequently turn the user into a provider. “This is precisely the situation our Mobile Widget Runtime is designed to take account of. The solution here is to create close intermeshing of the Web and the mobile phone.” Linner makes the point that a feature of compressed widget web applications is that they can provide services without permanent Internet connectivity. Fraunhofer Fokus, he says, brings these widgets to mobile phones, meaning that web applications can now use functions like Bluetooth, satellite navigation, MMS, Instant Messaging or telephone conferencing. “On the one hand it enables extended use of the mobile phone as an access point for location-based services, which is just what telephone and network providers want to see. On the other, browser providers are also showing interest in the new platforms, even though they know that today’s web applications can’t be realised on a one-to-one basis on mobile end devices.”