Another idea for an application for the Neo: Instant sync to web page duplicating info on phone

michael at michaelshiloh.com michael at michaelshiloh.com
Wed Nov 29 22:42:25 CET 2006


Here's another idea, this one less than half-baked, but I trust this community
to help identify the flaws, seek the gems, and see if anything remains that is
useful.

My current phone is the Danger Sidekick II. One of its features that I really
like is the web page that Danger provides that duplicates the data on my
phone: Calendar, address book, notes files, todo list, photographs, email, and
perhaps others.

Modifications can made either on the web page or on the phone.  There is no
special "sync" command. Data entered on the one is available on the other
almost instantly, assuming data network connectivity. Syncronization happens
automatically and constantly.

I recognize that there are security flaws with this. Remember Hilton's video?
This is how it was stolen.

Here's how I use it: I jot down notes all day long on my phone. At home, I
visit the web page and simply cut and paste my notes into emails, documents,
even programs.

The nice thing about this is that I always have access to the data on my
phone, and I don't have to worry about any special sync cables or cradles or
software (all my home computers run Linux, so I can't use most phone desktop
programs). I never have to worry about leaving my cradle at home, and needing
the data at work.

I'm a big fan of CVS, and I often CVS important files from my phone.

And of course I can quickly check my calendar or address book from any
browser, anywhere.

Now I have many issues with Danger's implementation of this feature, but I
really like the idea. I'm not that familiar with other smart phones, but I've
never seen, or heard about, anything like this with the others.

Of course our implementation will be open, so I can make it do exactly what I
want. For example, provide an API, so that I can write a cron job that every
so often will download all data off the phone and CVS it. Remember, the phone
doesn't have to be in a cradle for this to occur. Heck, the phone could even
be powered off, and my cron job would get the last version that made it to the
server.

I think that Danger provides the servers for this; in our implementation we
would probably have to each provide our own, which means we'd have to write
the server side code as well. I suppose this is all done with PHP, Java, and
other languages that I don't know about (I'm more of a kernel/device
driver/embedded/hardware guy).

We could implement as much or as little security as we wish (SSL, encryption,
etc.)

What do you think?

Michael




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