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A Webserver on Your Cellphone?

Posted by Cliff on from the what-would-you-do-with-it dept.

Mad_Rain asks: "I saw over on Make Magazine an article about using your cell phone on the Internet, except instead of browsing the web from your cell, you can serve webpages from your phone. Of course, it uses Apache, Python and a Nokia S60 series cell phone. I can imagine a couple of creative applications for webservers in strange places, but what else can be done with this?"

18 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. The best way to bankrupt your employer by arivanov · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just run a webserver and post in slashdot. I am sure accounts will be mildly entertained the moment they get the GPRS bill.

    --
    Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
    http://www.sigsegv.cx/
  2. "What else can be done with this?" by Hosiah · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Make a phone call? NMo, wait, it's a *cell* *phone*, what was I *thinking*!?!?

  3. "What else can be done with this?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    It can be used to spread viruses toeven more people who think they know how to admin a webserver.

  4. Real-time reporting by mrchaotica · · Score: 2, Insightful

    At Macworld, everybody reported stuff instantly by writing it on their laptops and uploading via WiFi. However, what if WiFi weren't available?

    With a phone like this, you could report on any event, anywhere (even if it meant just serving pictures and audio, since text input on phones is so bad).

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  5. Have GPS? by RingDev · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Imagine giving your children a cell phone with a web server that hosts a web service that will respond with the GPS info. I could goto MyKid.ringdev.com and see exactly where they are. Obviously you would need some serious security. You wouldn't want just anyone to get that GPS info. But it would be great for finding a lost/stolen phone too.

    -Rick

    --
    "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
    1. Re:Have GPS? by oliana · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Or if, when the server got pinged, it rang. So when you lose your cell-phone in your house and don't have a land-line to call it to find it, you can ping it from your computer.

      --
      In Soviet Russia, asses suck this joke.
    2. Re:Have GPS? by BuR4N · · Score: 2, Informative

      There is many services like this, using GSM basestation/cell triangulation. No need for an GPS if your interested in finding out where the cell phone with a resolution that is pretty decent.

      --
      http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
    3. Re:Have GPS? by X0563511 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Er, run a packet sniffer on the world-facing interface outside your firewall and watch how often random pings from the internet pass by.

      Maybe better would be a simple website with a small (5 letter) text field. Enter the right code, and it would ring.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  6. Two words by EngrBohn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Portable webcam

    --
    cb
    Oooh! What does this button do!?
    1. Re:Two words by ichigo+2.0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      99% of the time it would show pictures of pocket lint. Unless people start walking around with phones hanging around their neck. :)

  7. Just because you can... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...doesn't mean you should. There are a lot of ways the things around you can be used and abused. Sometimes the use is a good one (e.g. potatos are great for getting broken lightbulbs out of their sockets), but I just can't think of any way that a phone webserver would be useful. More likely, it'll run up the guy's wireless bill and open him to various attacks.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  8. Re:Oh great! by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 4, Funny
    It's not so nice when the phone catches fire in your pocket

    Speak for yourself.

  9. In other news... by famebait · · Score: 3, Informative

    Conversely, with the right software you can use your webserver to make phone calls.
    If you really really want to it is also possible to beat screws into wood with a hammer, or alternatively with a banana frozen in liquid nitrogen.

    --
    sudo ergo sum
  10. So... by famebait · · Score: 3, Funny

    instead of browsing the web from your cell, you can serve webpages from your phone.

    Was this by any chance in Soviet Russia?

    --
    sudo ergo sum
  11. Serve yourself! by drstock · · Score: 2, Funny

    It could be interesting to use this to serve pages to the phone's own browser, to allow off-line browsing for phones who have no such function.

    --
    My other comment is funny
  12. Out pacing the average citizen's ability by catahoula10 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A product like this one brings some questions to mind about security and the ability to admin a server by the people this would be marketed to.

    If you store alot of business phone numbers along with their personal info like e-mail, home numbers, etc, could this be hacked off the phone through the server? The abuse issues could be endless via users that have not one single clue about admining a web server.

    Our technology seems to be out pacing the average citizen's ability to control it. Which is a paradox because everyone wants a better life through technology.

    --
    This has been another valuable and informative opinion from:
    Catahoula!
  13. Re:What about for contact management? by Bastardchyld · · Score: 2, Informative

    As far as "spitting" the data back. I am not so sure I want my "phone/webserver" spitting my contacts all over the internet. Besides isn't that what Paris Hilton was trying to prevent with all the lawsuits after her cell phone was hacked?

    --
    $diff terrorists hippies
    $
    $rm -rf *terrorists *hippies
  14. Re:What about for contact management? by bigtrike · · Score: 2, Informative

    Check out SyncML. It's meant for exactly this. It also does appointments and to-do as well.

    You can pretty much do whatever you want with these phones. Nokia has released a free dev kit based on gcc. The API docs are freely available. There is even a (semi limited) emulator for testing apps on your desktop. You can remotely install your apps via bluetooth to test them, and supposedly you can remote debug via gdb (I never got that to work). The only real limitations are the semi slow CPU and Nokia's semi crazy macros for memory allocation (necessary to eliminate the need for an MMU) and their somewhat hard to use API (built to minimize resource usage so the devices have a reasonable battery life).