A wireless application overlay for ubiquitous mobile multimedia sensing and interaction

Mobile users are continuously surrounded by heterogeneous (mobile) devices that provide a basis for direct multimedia interaction within the immediate physical context. However, current multimedia approaches are restricted to sense the availability of devices and their respective multimedia application content through Internet services that manage the locality of devices and content. Each service thereby manages only the narrow context of each device according to the respective application, preventing devices and approaches from sensing the diversity, spontaneity, and dynamics of mobile contexts and the physical interaction scope. Orthogonally, we facilitate direct and ubiquitous mobile multimedia sensing and interaction in 802.11 and 802.15.4 within the unrestricted physical context of mobile devices. Removing the need for Internet services or wireless networks, we derive a wireless service overlay over the sensed media in the locality of a device that exposes media to applications. Our technical evaluation shows the feasibility of the underlying uncoordinated, unrestricted network-less communication. We substantiate our design along an implementation of traditional and novel mobile use cases, illustrating the design space made accessible by our approach.