MIT professor Hal Abelson started today’s final presentation for the school’s “Building Mobile Applications” class by saying, “A course like this couldn’t have existed ten years ago… maybe not even a year ago. Courses like this right now are unique, but in two years they’ll be completely ordinary.”
What’s extraordinary is that on top of a full college course-load at one of the most challenging schools in the country, these groups of students built fully working mobile applications for Windows Mobile, Android, and Symbian devices while mentors from the likes of Google, Nokia, Bank of America, and Microsoft oversaw their progress.
Here are the ten applications that were presented today. Some of them might remain as small-scale projects, while others are full-blown, robust applications that have already undergone serious development and are poised to enter the marketplace.
Marauder (Windows Mobile)
Marauder measures crowd density by detecting nearby Bluetooth-enabled phones. So say you’re looking for a restaurant nearby — the idea is that you’ll be able to see how crowded it is before you go. For this to work, at least one person’s phone in the restaurant has to have Marauder installed on it. That phone will see how many other phones are around it by checking for Bluetooth signals, and that data will be uploaded to Marauder’s servers. Locations on a map (see above) will be color coded based on density. It’s a cool idea that seems to need to be fleshed out a bit more.
For example, there’s no way to measure density based on a building’s occupancy rate. Currently, 20-30 detected devices returns a “crowded” rating whether or not you’re at a sporting event or inside a tiny club. The program also has potential civil and business uses for things like public transportation and housing data. All in all, a unique spin on location-based services.
Ballyhoo! (Symbian)
Ballyhoo! is a relatively straightforward mobile coupon redemption tool. You search for deals in your immediate vicinity and you’re presented with mobile coupons that can be redeemed at point-of-sale terminals that are equipped to handle near field communication (NFC) – think of those Mastercard PayPass terminals where you just tap your card on the device instead of swiping it.
In order to get merchants on board with this flavor of coupon-giving, shoppers’ usage data can be anonymously given to stores for marketing and research purposes.
Memento (Android)
Super cool. Memento automatically organizes the photos you take with your phone into albums based on the location where the photos were taken. You can choose to make certain groups of photos public and instantly upload them to popular photo-sharing sites while keeping photos taken in another location private. You can view and share your photos by selecting them from within an organized list or pull up a map to look at collections visually (see above). The program looks really straightforward and easy – it’s for people who take a lot of photos but hate organizing them.
Mem2D (Windows Mobile)
Mem2D aims to solve the problem of archiving information you might see on a flyer that you want to remember for later. Events are created using a simple web-based interface and when marketing materials for a particular event get printed up, there’s a unique barcode that’s added as a graphic. People who want to remember the information on, say, the flyer you posted in the student union building would simply use the Mem2D application on their mobile phones to take a photo of the barcode.
At that point, all of the pertinent information – time, place, date, the event’s website, etc. – would be saved to a user’s account on the Mem2D website for later. Event info can be shared with friends via e-mail or SMS, and there’s calendar integration and support for mapping and directions as well.
Mem2D [Mem2d.com]
MobileTrader (Symbian S60)
Think of MobileTrader as an on-the-go marketplace for connecting buyers and sellers who are within a mile and a half of each other. You create a listing as a buyer or a seller and when there’s a match made, each person gets an instant message and can coordinate a spot to meet up and make an exchange. It sounds a little creepy for real-world use but it could find a nice niche in microcosmic systems like college campuses.
In order to prevent spam, sellers aren’t able to contact buyers directly. And everything’s anonymous until a deal is made, at which point the details are recorded – the item sold, the price, etc. – creating a contractual record of sorts. There are future plans for integration with online services like Paypal as well.
Moca (Android)
Moca is a mobile medical diagnostics program for developing nations. It allows medical field workers to go out to remote locations and provide instant data back to doctors in the bigger cities to diagnose. Using an Android phone, a field worker could take photos or videos, record sound (like coughing, etc.), and ask a series of questions to a patient that a doctor would normally ask. The results get uploaded to a server in real-time and a doctor hundreds of miles away can prescribe treatments.
The system leverages the OpenMRS (medical record system) platform to keep records and Moca, itself, is open-source. There’s a pilot program that’ll be set up in the Philippines this summer to test out the idea’s effectiveness. Impressive stuff, indeed.
Moca [MocaMobile.org]
Eclectyk (Symbian)
Eclectyk uses near-field communication (NFC) to replace the myriad of cards in your wallet with a simple cell phone application. It can be used for credit cards, ID cards, and it can even be used to unlock NFC-enabled doors. The program also has a sharing feature for tickets, so whoever in your group of friends shows up for a popular movie first can buy tickets and shoot them into everyone else’s phones.
Security consists of three layers: PIN numbers, hardware-based encryption, and even a remote wipe feature that can destroy everything if your phone’s lost or stolen. The system was developed under the advisement of Nokia and Bank of America.
UberCal (Windows Mobile)
Ubercal is a simple solution to an apparently complex problem. It synchronizes your mobile Outlook calendar and Google Calendar together. You can use Google Calendar’s handy “Quick Add” feature to create an appointment and there’s a template system that allows you to set up commonly-occurring events without filling out all of Outlook’s fifteen or so form fields each time. Slick.
CashTrack (Android)
CashTrack is an Android application that’s used for splitting bills. It consists of the app itself and a web interface. You can automatically split bills equally between people in your address book and keep a tally of who owes whom what. You can also manually finesse percentages of a certain bill so that you don’t end up paying for the seven beers your buddy ordered at dinner when all you ordered was water.
TrainMe (Android)
“Pocket Fitness Trainer” tool, TrainMe, is an Android that contains images and videos of certain exercise moves for people new to working out. It’ll create customized workout plans for you based on how many days per week you want to work out and how much weight you want to lose and the intensity of your workouts will dynamically adjust to you as well. For instance, you’ll do a set of push-ups and then tell the program if it was too easy, just right, or too hard.
The program also includes a food diary and there’s a website that allows you to upload your statistics, workouts, and various other data. You can even browse other users’ workout routines and clone the ones you like for next time at the gym.
I wish I could have taken that class in college sounds fascinating. Great work.
Steve
grindvision.com
It is a known fact that MIT is the top notch tech school in the US. I did however want to share the fact that our company, which is among top three software companies in the world, interviewed a number of candidates from MIT with a CS equivalent degree. Non of the candidates could define what “OOP” means. It gets worst. Three out of four candidates could not write a hello world application in a language of their choice. This is disappointing and makes many of us wonder what the meaning of ivy degree is these days.
MIT kids can’t write hello world? get the f out of here.
If none of the MIT candidates could define what OOP means, then there’s a problem with your recruitment effort. You’re probably getting the shittiest of the candidates.
Oh yeah, MIT is not even an ivy league.. stop talkin out your ass already.
I don’t know what kind of MIT graduates you are getting. I go to school just down the campus and based on recruiting events either one these is happening:
1) You are getting the worst of the class because no one wants to work for you except those who can’t choose.
2) They are not honest about getting a degree from MIT (which is consistent with what you’re describing — what kind of retard applies for a programming job without being able to write a hello world application on ANY kind of language and/or not know what is OOP?)
So they probably not only didn’t graduate from MIT, but probably don’t have a CS degree.
Also, MIT is not in the ivy league. Which country do you live in? What kind of incompetent recruiter doesn’t know the first facts about where they’re recruiting from?
and… I think you’re lying about being someone from one of the top three software companies in the world, one among many reasons being that the top three always send kids who graduated only a year / a few years ago to recruit. And they would know if MIT is an ivy league.
Look, I didn’t mean any offense. It does raise an important question about candidates who claim a prestigious degree just to get through the door and then cannot even solve simple software engineering problems.
We don’t ask them to literally code hello world, but we ask for code that is more or less as simple as that. For example, reversing strings and similar. I did consider what you mention in both of your points. We did not get to find out whether their degrees were really honest since we decided not to proceed.
I thin it’s worth mentioning that we currently have a number of people from MIT who are brilliant as expected.
These are candidates that sound like they could have easily been screened out at the application / resume phase. Are you contacting MIT’s career prep (or equivalent) department for candidates or just monstering useless people who are lying out their ass on their resumes?
That’s true, I love this kind of class, good jobs :)
Hi do you guys know what other colleges offer this type of classes? in the east coast?
The University of Michigan is teaching a course this semester. It’s already got an enrollment of 50+ students and this is only the first one.
Wow I didn’t know that. Which class are you referring to?
EECS 498. It’s a special topics course right now. We’ll be building applications for either the iPhone or Android as far as I know.
OnDeego’s senior executives taught a course on mobile applications at UC Berkeley. And the kids built their apps in ten weeks, and they worked on more platforms.
What’s so great about it? Back at University (NOT MIT) we used to program Java ERP applications and Java applets in class while Joe Average didn’t even know about the Internet, not to mention all this new crap like Facebook, Android, Twitter, Flex and alike. Other times, other duties, that simple!
In a CS class, one should NOT learn how to develop for device XYZ. In the first place, one should learn about CS concepts, data structures and algorithms. Secondly, it’s still assembler, C, C++, Ada and maybe Java or Smalltalk for the sake of OOP.
It’s really scary to see how big corps try to suck CS students into their closed worlds. There are enough CS students in India who think they know a shit about CS as soon as they’ve mastered to write a VBA macro. Screw such CS “experts”. We don’t need another bubble in IT. The one at Wall Street is enough for quite a while.
Ada? Are you for serious?
Why single out India?! You can find many over your own backyard itself!
@george this is not an intro cs class that teaches concepts, those classes are prereqs for this class. As the articles states its a class on building mobile apps and in this case we got to choose the platforms we developed for as it would not have been easy to build multi-platform apps in the time provided as we do have other classes with thier own matters to deal will.the class revolved around building the apps from class with no prior knowledge of the sdks for the devices. I would say that was probably the most annoying part. getting sdk’s and environments set up.
it’s MIT… guys, only the media cares about the ivyleague/stanford/mit… learn to respect the only 10 schools that matter. :)
It will be interesting to see which of these applications come out within the next few years. I know I can certainly use a few of them!
“What’s extraordinary is that on top of a full college course-load at one of the most challenging schools in the country, these groups of students built fully working mobile applications”
That’s entirely ordinary in any CS curriculum….
Just wondering, how is Mem2D different from the Japanese barcode reading cell phones? Sounds like a cool class though.
there is a post-grad course @ zurich university for design and arts, called mobile application design. it’s been there for a while – they started in 2001.
http://mad.zhdk.ch
(most of it is in german)
Eh, not really all that impressive, all the hard work has already been done for them. All that it takes to create any one of those mobile apps above is some working knowledge of public APIs. Creating a Map application on the Android is about as simple as following a short tutorial and writing GoogleMaps.drawMap().
Yawn..
What I’m most impressed by is the fact that this class exists! I think it’s fantastic that. The younger generation is usually the one that brings us the most innovation. I know I was totally engrossed with my computer when I was a kid, and that was 30 years ago! If I hadn’t gotten into technology at such a young age, I don’t think I would have been able to attain the knowledge it took to run my own website development company. Can’t wait to see what they come up with over the next few years.
http://www.datexmedia.wordpress.com
Marauder is a cool idea. Hope it can be refined and mainstreamed. Really useful stuff.
This reminds of when colleges first started to teach game design.
Hope this grows into something bigger.
WOW! Great inventions and innovations, exactly what we advocate for at http://www.youtechno.info
The Eclectyk project looks interesting, but it’ll be a few years before it becomes usefull for me I think :(
I don’t know of anywhere that I can pay for goods using the NFC technology employed by the project.
A very practical class. Finally something that business will immediately gravitate too. If the leaders for the coupon project would like to discuss strategic partnerships please email me.
Steven
I’m not involved in this project but my company owns the North American patent for NFC coupons. I could not find a way to contact you so if you could either get in touch with me or provide an email I’d like to talk.
Oh no! Drucker said that when something becomes obsolete we turn it into university coursework. Say it ain’t so!!
He might be wrong this time, though. This could be a useful jumping off point for aspiring mobile devs.
Best of luck with Moca. That is a very cool thing.
@UK
Actually, there are a lot places in the US that already accept RFID payment. Mastercard and American Express already have RFID credit cards – they’re just not very secure.
http://www.smartcardalliance.org/pages/publications-contactless-payments-what-who-why
@jane jones: they do, and so does visa (Visa is even an investor in Inside Contactless, which suppliesthe majority of chips to corporate ID folks via HID). TI supplies the chips for AMEX exclusively, and security is better there (currently, security thru obscurity and TI is more obscure). There are issues on the acquiring side of NFC, no terminals (who pays for them?) telco vs. credit card (who gets what piece of the pie?), and devices capable of handling the air interface and security (who supports?). There are also issues with data transmission rates (remember the carrier frequency is 13.56MHz) and the time requirements for transactions puts pressure on the security practices in usage. Wll PKI win the day?
Disclosure: One of my main projects is building a dedicated device (ala iPod, Kindle, Peek, etc.) to handle payments because one company knowing who I call, where I go (eg. GPS/ A-GPS), and who I call is not comfortable for me and I am uncertain about the companies ability and/or interest to protect our personal information.
and what I buy*
Not bad for a full time student, but at the same time, I still am in awe by my friend Matt Inman’s dedication to build a full-fledged dating site — in 66 hours — on top of a full time job: http://mingle2.com/blog/view/how-i-built-mingle2
The site ended up being acquired and he was brought on board full-time.
I’d really like to try out UberCal… too bad there’s no link.
There is an entire Seed Infrastructure (incubators, academia, economic development agencies) – both in the United States and, has been mentioned in other posts, worldwide – that should be supported and compensated by venture investing. I am not talking about traditional venture capital as traditional venture capital does not and cannot fit their model into the Seed model.
I am talking about a distinct effort dedicated to working with, supporting and compensating the Seed Infrastructure and the Entrepreneur.
Please review – http://www.slideshare.net/ElliottDahan/start-fund-12012008-presentation/
Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,.
Elliott Dahan
elliott@thegrowthgroup.com
I think Memento seems like the coolest–I could use it everyday I love taking pics and who wouldn’t want it?
very cool! definitely seem to be leading the way w/some mobility technology w/next phase of mobility and location based services
very cool! definitely seem to be leading the way w/some mobility technology w/next phase of mobility and location based services
Looks like a few nice ideas there, but i am amazed not to see a bunch of iphone apps, since they are quite easy to develop if you rtfm.
Bluetooth app ia quite cool ( especially using a remote device in a crowd, very Batman Dark knight)
Measuring a crowd via Bluetooth is not that useful or accurate as in my experience most people have bluetooth disabled to save battery life and only enable it when transferring to ther pc / mac.
Nothing exactly mind blowing though.
About the university student quality:
Here in the uk I also fear the students quality is deteriorating.
They seem to be Much worst than the quality you get from South African / Russian programmers.
Http://Www.iPhoneTutorialVideos.com
( more videos will be online soon)
We had similar course in San Jose State University called Mobile Technologies where we build similar applications on Android and J2ME platforms.
Courses like these build a students confidence in facing challenges especially during these recession times.
No love for the iPhone app class at Stanford? They just had their demos on Friday, so hopefully word will be getting out about that soon.
The best thing about these apps is seeing innovative ideas turned into practical implementations. Wish other unis had as many bright kids who could do the same.
Is the course material available online
I would vote for …
TrainMe
Ubercal
That sounds great! Wish I havde done it… If only…
This technologi is great!
Nice work Done by You people…..
I realy like to explore such application….
if possible please!!
mail me Your doc
The best about this is that it’s build by students and think what we get when they come in power to approve these things.
Ot1tgL hi! how you doin?
Memento seems not hard to implement, but very interesting.
Total bullshit. Interviewing any CS student at any university would be able to do this for you, this is 101 stuff.
Well I can certainly disagree with. It most likely means you have not interviewed that much or perhaps you have been getting really lucky in your recruiting and have only dealt with the brightest a school had to offer. In our efforts, we even talked to fresh grads from Stanford who struggled with fundamentals. A candidate with a Stanford CS degree once interviewed with us and she could not explain the difference between passing by value and passing by reference. It is really not that uncommon to find an ivy school candidate who is not fit for the job. Recently we interviewed a number of MIT grads with double majors and very few impressed us with their CS side. My thought was that MIT was either not rigorous enough on giving out these double majors or the candidates we got were simply the worst that school had to offer.