OLBS: Offline location based services

Abstract

Most existing location-based services rely on ubiquitous connectivity to deliver location-based contents to the users. However, connectivity is not available anywhere at anytime even in urban centres. Underground, indoors, remote areas, and foreign countries are examples situations where users commonly do not have guaranteed connectivity but could profit from location-based contents. In this work, we propose an open platform for publishing, distributing and maintaining location-based contents that can be accessed offline by the user on a mobile device. Additionally, we describe the prototype we implemented for proof of concept consisting of an smart phone application and a web application back office, using 2D-barcodes as location identifiers. Our prototype provides offline access, as well as publishing, installing and updating location-based content. Â(c) 2011 IEEE.