Looking for a mentor for Google SoC - interested in GPS-smart app devel

[Ryan Prior]

Dear OpenMoko community,

I plan on writing and extending OpenMoko apps to take best advantage of GPS
data, providing support to all OpenMoko apps via d-bus and providing useful
built-in functions in the base Moko apps. My primary objectives are:
1) Write a library or daemon that provides simple geographically related
data to Moko apps, such as creation and management of GPS points, distance
between the phone and a point, finding the nearest point, generating a list
of all points within a certain distance, etc.
2) Write a daemon that reports events based on geographical location or
location relative to defined GPS nodes. This allows the phone to
automatically perform tasks based on GPS data without each having to poll
the GPS module by providing an event-driven geolocation architecture.
3) Write a GPS-smart todo list application that can give reminders based on
location, generate a pared-down todo list based on location, and provides an
API to other apps for parsing various structures (especially plain text, as
might be received in an email or typed with the stylus, and info imported
from calendars) into a todo list complete with geographic info.
4) Write GPS intelligence into a profile switching app, allowing automatic
reconfiguration of the phone depending on geographical location or location
relative to defined GPS points. Useful features include automatically going
into drive-mode when driving, silent-mode when inside a theatre or symphony
hall, silent mode (or disabled communications mode) when inside a public
school, etc.
5) Integrate the above into an auto-task manager that can automatically
perform tasks such as "Sync with my latest email and calendar data as I
walk/drive to work" or "Put music player at top of my commonly used apps
list when I get to track practice". The same task manager can also
incorporate data such as current time, number of emails in inbox, which day
of the week, etc. The goal of this application is to allow sophisticated
control over phone automation for power users and give a number of sane,
useful options to basic phone users.

Scope of the Summer of Code project: implement 1 and 2 solidly, laying the
framework for the next ones; implement 3 4 and 5 as far as time allows,
focusing more on function than polish (though with the OpenMoko application
framework, polish isn't exactly hard to come by!)

About me: I am 18 years old and a USA resident. I have been tinkering with
computers all my life, but only started programming at 11. My name is Ryan
and my primary interests are computers, microbiology, and world travel (I'm
writing this from Europe). I enjoy long walks on the beach and longer
hacking sessions afterwards.

My development experience: The languages I am best with are Python, Scheme,
and JavaScript. I am willing to (and know that I have to) learn C/C++, and I
know a smattering of Perl, PHP, and Java. I have worked with a number of
application frameworks including GTK+ and have spent a lot of time using
(and being frustrated with) mobile phones. I am comfortable developing on a
Linux computer, and use a Linux laptop as my primary development tool. I
have written a bunch of programs but I have never contributed to open source
projects before. I'm looking forward to the experience! I have used many
open-source project management tools but I have never used CVS before. I'm
good at picking these things things up and I have strong online
communication skills, so I am optimistic that I can learn the ropes quickly.

Thanks for reading -- if anybody is interested in mentoring me, please help
me get the ball rolling for summer 2007! I'm really excited to watch
OpenMoko development unfold and I am itching to be a part of it.

Cheers,
Ryan aka PirateHead
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