A location-aware system prototype for touring in campus

With rapid growth of mobile devices and wireless internet technology, current LBS-based applications can effectively use information dynamically collected from the internet. While most applications are based on "pull" service, where the required information are retrieved from remote servers upon users' requests, the technology of Location Aware Service (LAS) instead uses "push" service to automatically feed customized information to users according to their status. The "push service" offers an obvious advantage for service providers to actively reach possible clients and offer their services. To avoid annoying or even garbage information, the service must be intelligent enough to automatically select contents that best fit users' needs from the abundant available data. A LAS prototype system for touring in campus was proposed and discussed in this paper. Developed on the Android platform, this system is designed to be able to select and offer customized information to users according to such constraints as location, tasks, time, etc. As users move in the campus, customized information is automatically sent to users' mobile devices for further reference. Especially for users who are not familiar with the operations of mobile devices, LAS-based applications appear to be a better approach as far as the time and efforts of training is concerned.