Web Access Possible On Low Cost Phone
A cloud service enables Internet access by using SMS and voice

Results: The India research team at HP Labs has created ‘SiteOnMobile,’ a technology platform that can make Internet content and services available to the masses even from low-end mobile phones.

Why it matters: For users in developing countries, mobile phones are expected to deliver their first Internet experience. However, more than 50 percent of the phones sold in India are ultra-low-end and less than 3 percent are Internet enabled. There is a strong need to deliver the Internet experience on low-end devices used by users in emerging markets like India. There are several small and medium businesses in India that have invested in an e-commerce Web portal for their business, but their portal is not much accessed by their end consumers today. The SiteOnMobile is a cloud service that enables such Website owners to define specific tasks on their Website, such as Buy Solar Stoves, and make those tasks easily accessible to their customers using low-end mobile phones.

Methods: SiteOnMobile enables task-based personal Web interactions over SMS and voice services. Instead of delivering a complete Web page to a mobile phone, the solution delivers only the short content relevant to the user’s task. It is built around a concept of TaskLets that represents the interactions for a user’s specific Web task. For example, if a user creates a tasklet of “Book a Taxi,” he or she will get an access code. The next time the user wants to book a taxi he or she will not have go through several Web pages to reach the booking page. The application will do all of it for the user internally and serve the booking page on the user’s phone screen instantly. The user could also use voice access code to book taxi. Those owning PCs can run tasklets by using widgets. Similarly, business owners can create tasklets of their service offerings, such as check order status or tuition classes for high school students, and promote/share their access code with their customers. Since the tasklets reside in the cloud they can be accessed from anywhere from any device.

Next steps: The portal is currently hosted at www.siteonmobile. com for selected customers who will be allowed to create TaskLets. HP Labs is awaiting a patent for its technology solution.

Source: “Simplifying Web access for the next billion”; Sudhir Dixit; HP Labs India, July 8, 2010, Bangalore, India.