The Wireless Application Protocol: Writing Applications for the Mobile Internet

The mobile Internet builds on a radical shift in the way we work, play, and communicate, extending traditional Internet and Web services to such wireless devices as cellular phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). This book is about the mobile Internet, the technology that powers it, and how to write content and applications for this new environment. It is both a tutorial and a reference for two major audiences: content and application developers, who need clear, technical details to guide their work, and business strategists and service planners, who need to understand what drives the mobile Internet and where it is heading.

"This book is an example of a unique partnership of motivated, technical teammates and would-be competitors coming together to develop a real 'how to' book on the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)....[The authors are all] actively working in the wireless and Internet industry, on the 'front line', helping to develop and deliver services to customers using a new wireless Internet standard....[They have produced] a WAP reference that will become 'required reading' for anyone planning to create applications, author content, deliver, or deploy services to wireless devices." Gregory G. Williams Chairman of the WAP Forum From the Foreword

Sandeep Singhal is CTO of ReefEdge, Inc.--a wireless applications and infrastructure company based in Fort Lee, New Jersey. He was formerly Chief Architect and a Senior Technical Staff Member for IBM's Pervasive Computing Division, where he was responsible for product design to support network connectivity from a broad range of sub-PC devices to Web servers and application infrastructure. He previously worked as a Research Staff Member in IBM's T. J. Watson Research Center and as a Software Engineer for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He is also an adjunct assistant professor on the graduate faculty at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

Sandeep's interests include network protocol design for large-scale collaborative and real-time systems, object-oriented software engineering, and network computing for pervasive computing devices. His credits include dozens of publications, including Networked Virtual Environments (Addison-Wesley, 1999), and ten issued patents. He served for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on an advisory board defining a long-term networked virtual environment research agenda and participated in a National Research Council effort to link military and entertainment applications of simulation technology. Sandeep also played a key role in defining and implementing the Defense Department's High Level Architecture (HLA) for distributed simulation.

Sandeep has participated in the WAP Forum since February of 1998. He currently chairs the User Agent Profile drafting committee and the Architectural Consistency Group at the WAP Forum. He is a member of the W3C Mobile Access Interest Group and is actively working toward converging WAP technologies with the larger Web.

Sandeep holds M.S. and Ph.D degrees in computer science from Stanford University, as well as B.S. degrees in computer science and in mathematical sciences and a B.A. in mathematics from Johns Hopkins University. Tom Bridgman is a software engineer in IBM's Research Division, located in Yorktown Heights, New York. He joined IBM in 1989, working on network-based managed client environments for OS/2 and Windows. Since 1997, he has concentrated on development for pervasive computing devices, and he was one of the principal designers for the first release of Lotus Wireless Domino Access (now Mobile Services for Domino)--IBM's first product supporting HDML smart phones. Tom has been an IBM representative to the WAP Forum since February 1999, concentrating on the Wireless Application Environment Subgroup of the Wireless Applications Group. He has recently assumed editorship of the WML 1.x specification. Lalitha Suryanarayana is a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Austin, Texas based SBC Technology Resources (TRI), the applied research arm of the SBC Communications family of companies. She is responsible for developing new services architecture strategy for wireless and other emerging data technologies. She has been with SBC TRI since 1997 and was formerly a Member of Technical Staff in NYNEX (now Bell Atlantic) Science and Technology in White Plains, NY.

With nine years in telecommunications research and development, Lalitha has had extensive experience in developing services in the voice and data worlds. She led the implementation of NYNEX's CallAbility Feature AccessSM. She has participated in the design of Southwestern Bell's first AIN mass-market service, Outgoing Call ControlSM, and more recently, in the architecture for Online OfficeSM. Lalitha's research interests include defining network and device agnostic architectures for interactive and collaborative data applications.

Lalitha has participated in the WAP Forum since October of 1998. She is currently serving on the WAP-W3C Coordination Committee, representing the WAP Forum in coordination activities associated with the convergence of mobile Internet with the larger Web. In addition, she is on the Drafting Committee for WAP User Agent Profile where she has been responsible for authoring the schema and vocabulary specifications for UAProf. She also participates in CC/PP standardization efforts within the World Wide Web Consortium.

Lalitha holds a M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Polytechnic University, New York and is currently working towards an MBA at the University of Texas, Austin. Daniel Mauney has designed wireless software and hardware user interfaces for more than six years. Currently, he is the Director of the Human Factors Engineering Group at Mobileum, Inc., a leading provider of solutions designed to power the global wireless e-commerce market. Dan is responsible for defining and designing the user interface for wireless Internet sites, and he participates in the WAP Forum.

Formerly, Dan was a senior member of technical staff in the Human Factors Engineering group at SBC Technology Resources, the applied research and development arm of SBC. He was responsible for defining, designing, and evaluating the user interface of WAP applications offered by the SBC Communications family of companies (including Southwestern Bell Wireless, Pacific Bell Wireless, Ameritech, and Cellular One). Prior to SBC, Dan was with Jabra Corporation, a small company that makes hands-free communications devices.

Dan holds a Ph.D. in industrial and systems engineering with an emphasis in human factors from Virginia Tech. He has published numerous papers and has been granted five patents, with two additional patents pending. Jari Alvinen is a Senior Specialist for Nokia Mobile Phones based in Tampere, Finland. He is responsible of standardization activities in the Wireless Application Protocol Forum and other WAP-related technologies. Jari has been with Nokia since 1999 and was formerly Manager of technology research and architecture in TeamWARE, Wireless Solutions.

He has been working with mobile applications since 1994 and has participated in the WAP Forum since February of 1998. He currently chairs the WAP Push drafting committee at the WAP Forum and is a member of the WAP Specification Committee.

Jari holds B.Sc. degree in computer science from Espoo-Vantaa Institute of Technology, as well as B.Sc. degree in telecommunications from Rïhäki Institute of Technology, Finland. Dave Bevis is an architect for IBM's Pervasive Computing division based in Hursley, England. He is responsible for mobile data communications system design.

He has worked in the mobile communications arena for more than 10 years, in development of both hardware and software, and more recently as a consultant. Dave qualified in telecommunications and radio and line transmission while working for the Marconi Company in England and subsequently worked for IBM in both Germany and the United States.

Dave has been a telecommunications representative for IBM on several mobile computing forums, such as the European Community ACTS projects on mobility and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) working on Applications for Trans European Trunked Radio Association (TETRA). He currently serves as secretary for the WAP Forum's Wireless Application Group (WAG) and as editor of the WBXML specification. Previously, he represented IBM on the WAP Forum's Board of Drectors. Jim Chan is the director of wireless network technologies at Mobileum, Inc. He contributes to the WAP Forum's WTA and WAP NG working groups, and the Location-Based Services Drafting Committee. Prior to this position, Jim was a senior member of technical staff of the Wireless Systems Division at SBC's Technology Resources, Inc. His projects included Wireless Telephony Applications (WTA), emergency and location-based services (LBS), wireless number portability, wireless communications for law enforcement, and speech recognition for wireless applications. From 1990 to 1997, Jim was with BellSouth's Science and Technology group where he worked on specification and development of Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) services. His background includes working on several telecommunications and data communications start-up projects.

He received his MSEE from Georgia Tech and is a registered Professional Engineer (PE) and Certified Computing Professional. He has been granted three patents and has one patent pending. Stefan Hild has been involved with mobile communications research and development since 1992, working in IBM laboratories at Heidelberg (Germany), Hursley (UK), and Zurich (Switzerland). He holds doctorate and undergraduate degrees in computer science from the University of Cambridge, England and the University of London, respectively. Stefan has presented at a number of conferences and published articles in journals and trade magazines. He is a member of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.

Most recently, Stefan and his colleagues at IBM Zurich Research have been involved with the on-going standardization of the Wireless Application Protocol and have made contributions in the area of WAP security and WAP prototyping.

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