Jonas Landgren on Information Technology and Emergency & Crisis Response: Web Server on your cellphone – a new design space.

Last night, I successfully installed Nokias Mobile Web Server on my S60 cellphone. I have been aware of this service for some while but I never really took the time to install it, until now. My reaction to the experience of accessing my cellphone via my laptop web browser was significant. Like a kid on Christmas Day. The web server is a stripped down Apache server with some add-ons. The Nokia software opens up the mobile phones functionality so you can do many nice things in a remote mode. My mind goes a bit wild when, in a hands-on-fashion, I explore what it could mean that all mobile devices are connected to the internet. The range of new solutions seems endless. For emergency and crisis response, it might mean that we could design and deploy solutions that in new ways provide connectivity across a network of response actors. There is no longer a need to add yet another device such as a tabletpc just in order to provide a two-way data communication. I hope that we in a short time will be able to publish some desirable concepts that shows the possibilities for Swedish Emergency and Crisis Response. Until then … have a look at: http://mymobilesite.net/

However, what works in Sweden, an eminently sensible society, might fail in the United States, where utility companies have a spotty record in committing investment into infrastructure which doesn’t promise a rapid payback.