Progressive HTML for Proximate and Automatic Interactions

Development and projections in the field of PDAs and wireless communication architectures let us consider new applications which exploit short range and direct exchanges. In a close future we may imagine mobile users equipped with wireless PDAs dynamically and spontaneously exchanging rich information in an ad hoc manner. In such a context, a connection between two PDAs may be broken at any time because of the short communication range and the unconstrained mobility of the users. Thus, such spontaneous data exchanges become a real challenge. To perform spontaneous and relevant transmissions compatible with these volatile connections, we propose a method that progressively downloads information according to its importance. Then, we show an implementation of such a mechanism in a Web context by extending the actual browsers capabilities.