NRC - Mobile Web Server: "For quite some time it has been possible to access the Internet using mobile phones, although the role of the phone has strictly been that of a client. Considering that the modern phones have processing power and memory on par with and even exceeding that of webservers when the web was young, there really is no reason anymore why webservers could not reside on mobile phones and why people could not create and maintain their own personal mobile websites."

There seem to be a few folks out there now turning things on their head by embedding web servers everywhere (as opposed to thinking of wirelessly connected devices as just clients): Node and Ambiesense, amongst others...

Comments

[Ben]

"...the modern phones have processing power and memory on par with and even exceeding that of webservers when the web was young..."

Well, that may be true, but they have extremely intermittent network connections, very high bandwidth charges and battery life that's, um, "negatively impacted" by doing any sort of sustained processing. To consider only CPU/memory is to miss other important metrics of the "power" of a system.

[Viraj Paripatyadar]

I have used Racoon, which is the Mobile Web Server in question. In fact, I've written a blog entry which points out some future applications (http://technologicalities.blogspot.com/2006/10/website-in-my-pocket.html). You may want to have a look.

Also, it seems worthwhile pointing out that with better batteries and upcoming 3G connectivity, this really seems a viable option in a few situations. Believe me, over a slightly above average GPRS connection, a PoC for the web server is definitely possible. Probably that's OK for light use as well.

As far as bandwidth charges are concerned, many operators (even GPRS) are coming up with reasonable fixed rental GPRS plans (no limit on transfer), which take out any support from this argument. With evolving technology, this should prove to be only a better proposition.

[Tom Hume]

Viraj: I think we all agree then. With better batteries, connectivity, data tariffs, and networks, it's all workable ;)