Web-app access to "sensors" on mobile devices

Mobile devices are being equipped with a growing variety of “sensor” hardware (including GPS receivers and built-in cameras) that provide us with capabilities to interact with the real world around us in ways that we can’t with desktop PCs—especially as we move through our physical surroundings.

Ideally, we should be able to create Web-based applications that interact with mobile sensor hardware. But we’re still missing some essential pieces for making that happen. This session takes a look at how to move forward with getting the necessary support added to Web browsers and made available to Web developers.

The main mobile-device capabilities that Web applications need access to are:

• GPS/location-sensing hardware
• built-in cameras
• motion/gesture sensors

Thanks to specifications created through the JSR (Java Specification Requests) process — specifications such as JSR 179: Location API for J2ME and JSR 256: Mobile Sensor API — downloadable Java J2ME/MIDP applications for mobile devices already have standard ways to access to those types of devices capabilities. This session looks at what work is needed for access to those same capabilities to be exposed to browsers, and for standard scripting APIs to those device capabilities to be developed and supported in mobile browsers.

The ultimate goal of that work is to enable remote Web applications to interact with hardware capabilities on mobile devices in the same way that downloadable Java applications are able to today. If we can reach that goal, Web developers can create Web applications to displace download-and-install-required J2ME/MIDP applications in the same way that many Web applications have already displaced desktop applications on PCs.

Developers of applications for mobile devices and Web developers with an interest in delivering content to mobile devices are encouraged to attend this session and to offer comments and questions during the session and its following Q&A.