A Universal Messaging Agent Integrating Device Modalities For Individualised Mobile Communication

Markus Lauff, Albrecht Schmidt and Hans-W. Gellersen

TecO - Telecooperation Office - University of Karlsruhe
Vincenz-Prießnitz-Str. 1 - 76131 Karlsruhe - GERMANY

{markus, albrecht, hwg}@teco.uni-karlsruhe.de

Abstract.

A universal messaging agent (UMA) for more flexible communication with multimedia teleservices is introduced. The approach is general and application-independent; the UMA supports a variety of device modalities that can be flexibly configured for two-way communication. In particular different device modalities can be chosen for either direction. This paper focuses on the request/reply model for interaction with services underlying UMA. In this model, the requester and the receiver are separated clearly: requester and receiver can be located in different devices, utilising different device modalities such as SMS, Fax or Handheld Web browser. Further, requester and receiver can be separated in time, that is both requests and replies can be scheduled independently. The UMA accepts connections from different devices; these request are using protocols that are device-optimised, for instance optimised for usage with a GSM phone. The first processing step is to translate the request into a number of commands that have to be processed to compute the reply. This request analysis and translation is based on user profiles and a service profile database. In the next step the information is gathered, either immediately or according to a requested schedule, and then filtered, structured, and bundled. The generated reply finally is optimised for the receiver device that may differ from the requester device. The UMA enhances communication for heterogeneous and mobile environments through integration of device modalities. The new request/reply model underlying the UMA supports individualisation of mobile communication through support of highly configurable request/reply schedules.

Keywords

Multimedia-specific intelligent agents; Mobile multimedia systems; Device Modalities; Ubiquitous Computing; Media Conversion; Profiling

back to the list of publications