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When Cellphones Become Webservers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the is-that-an-apache-in-your-pocket? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Nokia is experimenting with turning mobile phones into webservers, according to an interesting article on Linux Devices. Nokia has ported the Apache webserver and a few other software modules to the Symbian OS that runs its phones, but there shouldn't be any barrier to adapting the technique to Linux mobile phones, since it all appears to be released under Linux-friendly open source licenses. Just think of the possibilities of having a webserver in your pocket!"

4 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Something I'd Like To See... by LEX+LETHAL · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To be able to run distributed computing applications like BOINC on your cellphone when it's not in use. It would suspend the activity when the battery charge reaches a user-defined limit.

    You could crunch units at night while your phone is charging.

  2. Not much use.... by tsvk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't see much use in this... Ususally (at least in GSM GPRS and UMTS 3G networks) the phones are behind one or two NATs. That is, all packet data users of an mobile operator are seen to the internet as coming from the host gprs.mobile.operator.com, or the like. You cannot directly connect from the internet to a specific mobile phhone's IP address, regardless of the existence of a mobile web server there.

    NATting is partly done to protect the mobile users from excess traffic. Imagine someone pingflooding your mobile's IP address, and you paid for data packet traffic by the kilobyte! :)

    I see this webserver porting more as an technology demo from Nokia's part: "Hey look how cool our phone operating system and programming platform is!", instead of being a real, useful application.

  3. wherethehellismyphone.com by Council · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The first thing I would do is have the phone update to a page, wherethehellismyphone.com. I would have this constantly updated with rough GPS coordinates. I'm not sure what phones can tell you their rough GPS coords, though. But it could give you all sorts of useful information in case the phone is lost or stolen -- what it last saw, where it was last used, etc.

    I mention this because I recently picked up this laptop, and one of my first plans is to get a GPS card installed in it. I'll have it running something netstumbler-like, and if it's lost or stolen, it will do its best to log in and upload the GPS coords to wherethehellismylaptop.com. So, if my laptop is lost or stolen, and the thief leaves it turned on while passing through any open wifi or going online in any way, presto. I could have the site have a Google Maps thingy that shows me where it was most recently spotted and when.

    This doesn't even require the GPS card -- any information you can have the device update you with is useful. It could tell me what the person was last looking at, what pages they're frequenting, etc. Get their name from their MySpace page and have the police show up at their door. Letting mobile devices act as servers opens up a lot of these possibilities, including making them easy to use as James-Bond-type spy/bug gadgets and taking a big step in the direction of useful remote presence.

    Of course, wherethehellismylaptop.com would require a very secure login if you want any privacy, ever.

    --
    xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
  4. Engineering monitoring applications by Reverberant · · Score: 4, Interesting
    But an actual web server?

    It could be great for engineers like me that deploy a lot of short-term and long-term measurement systems (noise/vibration/temperature/wind speed/etc) and want to make the data available in real-time to interested parties (e.g. a local community).

    Currently, the only way to disseminate this info is:

    • manually download the info every X days and stick it on a "real" webserver (time consuming, possibly impractical depending on location, weather, etc)
    • hook up a laptop with a cellmodem to the unit (expensive, power hungry), and
    • hook up a land line (very expensive).

    I would love to just be able to hook up a cellphone to the data logging unit, and just point people to www.city-noise-monitoring.org/site1. Yeah I know, niche application.

    The only issues I see:

    1. can I interface my unit to the phone using serial or bluetooth? and
    2. will the cell phone companies have a reasonable data-rate plan?

    I for one will be watching out for this.