Nokia's "Raccoon" project turns cellphones into webservers

It's been no secret that Nokia has been working on a mobile web server, lovingly codenamed project "Raccoon," but now they've taken things one step further, recently releasing the server source code under an open source license on the SourceForge website. The server is a version of Apache originally designed for the Nokia 6630 phone, although Nokia says it should work on any S60 2nd Edition Feature Pack 2 phone. It's certainly a big deal, and could well change the shape of the Internet, although we think Nokia may be getting a little ahead of themselves saying things like: "If every mobile phone or even every smartphone initially is equipped with a webserver, then very quickly most websites will reside on mobile phones." Better work on increasing that 100 to 1,000 concurrent user limit on the gateway first.

The implications of mobile phone-based websites

Nokia notes that websites hosted on mobile phones enable phone owners to inter-actively participate in content generation. For example, Nokia has written an application that prompts the phone owner to take a picture, which is then relayed to the requester as a JPEG.

Another touted advantage is that the amount of personal information stored on mobile phones makes it easy to "semi-automatically generate a personal home page."

So far, Nokia's "concept demonstration applications" include:

Interactive, contextual, and location-dependent content

• Use the phone as a webcam
• Find other mobile web sites in the proximity
• Find out the location of a mobile website (cellid)

Enabling new communication means without operator involvement

• Send instant message
• Leave instant message in the inbox
• Leave a note on a mobile weblog

Access core data

• Access favorites, contacts, calendar, logs, and messages
• Download images
• Mount a read-write view of the root webserver directory and edit pages directly using webDAV

Nokia's Raccoon project believes mobile phone webservers could have large implications for the Internet. It says, "If every mobile phone or even every smartphone initially is equipped with a webserver, then very quickly most websites will reside on mobile phones."

An Internet comprised largely of mobile phone-based servers could challenge search engines to keep pace, however, because of the "dynamism" of an Internet where site content can change from minute to minute.

Availability

The Raccoon Project's Symbian port of apache and gateway software can be freely downloaded under an Apache2 license from the project's Sourceforge website. The apache port was developed using a Nokia 6630, but should work on any "S60 2nd Edition Feature Pack 2" phone. The gateway application comes with Linux install scripts, but may also work on Windows. It requires a static IP, but may also work with dynamic DNS services.

Users wishing to use Nokia's gateway services, instead of running their own gateway, may request an account via email; additional details can be found here.

Source: Engadget Mobile & LinuxDevices.com

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