Enabling social networking in ad hoc networks of mobile phones

Abstract

This demonstration presents AdSocial, a software platform supporting social network applications in ad hoc networks. AdSocial targets small-scale scenarios such as friends playing a game on the train or co-workers sharing calendar information. Moreover, AdSocial is specifically designed to run on resource-constrained mobile devices, such as mobile phones. By using a simple and efficient data piggybacking mechanism, AdSocial applications share data by using any of the many existing routing protocols for ad hoc networks and without requiring any modification to the protocols themselves. The goal of this demonstration is to show the functionality that AdSocial can support with a very low overhead in an ad hoc network of 10--15 Nokia N810 handhelds. Conference participants will be able to establish voice-video calls, chat, or play games while moving around thus configuring a mobile and multi-hop ad hoc network.