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January 2001
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Car Angel: a smart device
In a smart device application contest organised by devicetop.com, Car Angel selected for the grand prize. Car Angel is an application equipped with a GPS helps drivers to find a location, to find the nearest gas station and fast food restaurant or to track past car movements. Car Angel is an easy-to-use application intended for a car equipped with a GPS. Car Angel provides local maps, and point-to-point navigation.
High marks went to the application for its readiness for market use, and ease of potential deployment. There is a great potential for extending the application in a commercial environment -- restaurants, for example, could pay to receive priority on the local restaurant map.
Using Espial Architect and the Espial Espresso component toolkit, Jason created a simple user-interface that makes generous use of the hotspots. Even though the interface and the information provided is very rich, the application's memory footprint is light, as it leaves the bulk of the processing to existing network services. This alleviates the need to recode this data or functionality locally.
"I think it's a great opportunity that devicetop.com is giving to developers to work on device applications with the possibility of winning such great prizes. Winning the car was a fantastic outcome to a rewarding experience," commented Jason from Moorpark, California. "I came up with Car Angel because I wanted to create an idea that was useful but still unique, so I picked up the general navigation aspect and added a few extra features (the tracking and the gas and restaurant finders) that aren't normally available, but that I thought would enhance the application.
"I would encourage anyone interested in Java or device development to have a look at devicetop.com. Learning and participating through the devicetop.com community is very rewarding, and you can't beat the incentives," continued Lawrie.
The BMW was not the only prize given away at last night's event. Two summer jobs along with a $2500 signing bonus were granted to two Carleton University students. Mihnea Galeteaneau and Kris Woodbeck both submitted top applications to devicetop.com. Mihnea developed a home management system application. This system enables numerous smart devices within the home to be connected together. And Kris's application was a pharmaceutical drug guide. This application will allow pharmacists to search by drug name or effects to display to their clients the names, side effects, cautions and various other existing data about that drug they have been prescribed.
Devicetop.com is a web portal for developers of services for smart-devices, devicetop.com offers a hub for news, industry information, discussion forums, technical tutorials, and software development tools for developers to learn, communicate, and create web content and application services. Devicetop.com provides developers with a global marketing venue to showcase their services to leading consumer electronics manufacturers, ISPs and network operators.
The smart device application contest ran from June to December 2000
This initiative was created through the devicetop.com university program launched in the fall of last year. This program is the next step in creating awareness about the smart device industry in a face-to-face environment. With the embedded industry on the verge of explosive growth, there is a relative shortage of embedded developers that is threatening to hold the industry back. But with the creation of devicetop.com and the university program Espial is working towards creating and ensuring a sufficient pool of highly skilled embedded developers, to meet the growth of embedded technology.
About Espial
Espial is the first company to provide a comprehensive approach to the development of software for the next generation of the Internet -- the Pervasive Internet. Partners and customers such as Intel, Motorola, NEC, Philips and Sun are helping Espial realize its Pervasive Internet vision, where billions of users access highly personalized information through a variety of Internet devices. Uniquely, Espial combines its end-to-end service delivery platform with business partnerships, to create a complete industry ecosystem. The company's technology applies universally, across sectors such as Internet appliances, TVs, wireless devices, and automotive applications.
Espial has offices in the United States,
Canada, Europe and Asia. Web: www.espial.com
CONTACT: Espial Angie Lynch, 613/230-4770 x1110
Email: alynch@espial.com
Jill Meloche, 613/230-4770 x1141
Email: jmeloche@espial.com
About Devicetop.com.
It is a web portal for developers of services for smart-devices, devicetop.com offers a hub for news, industry information, discussion forums, technical tutorials, and software development tools for developers to learn, communicate, and create web content and application services. Devicetop.com provides developers with a global marketing venue to showcase their services to leading consumer electronics manufacturers, ISPs and network operators.
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