Digital Graffiti

Design and implementation of a location-based information system with extensible smart elements for mobile devices. Currently available mobile location-based communication services enable their users to consume geographically bound information containing static text, images, sound or videos. Having arrived at previously prepared spots people are provided with information about the next gas station, hotels or sights of interest. More sophisticated variants of mobile location-based services also include dynamic links to locally available content providers. They additionally reveal the current gas price, vacancy status and reroute users to the online ticket service for tourists. Recently recognizable trends even consider individual user profiles as contextual constrains for supplying personalized information and as a technique to counteract spam and to selectively address content to specific user groups. However, the potentials of mobile interaction are far beyond being exploited, considering limiting factors preventing users from attending to the information screen of their mobile device e.g. while driving in a car. Active interaction may also be hindered when people are handicapped or requested to wear gloves, safety glasses or protective suits in order to perform a working task. We expect mobile services to support the users in their tasks by automatically triggering (personally authorized) electronic actions just at spatial proximity of approaching users without the needs of glimpsing at displays, typing, clicking or pressing buttons