E-Squirt

It’s almost become a

cliché to say that the Internet represents a revolution, but the fact

remains that

the revolution isn’t over yet. Companies all over the world are working

on, how to use the Net for better connectivity among users. HP’s CoolTown

project is another effort in this regard, and what makes CoolTown possible

is software like E-Squirt.

The long-term vision is of a

place where everything–people, places, and things–are connected to the

Web, and the Web connects everything. For example, when you visit a museum,

every painting there would have a URL, which your handheld, or wristwatch,

can pick up. You could use this to get more information on the painting via

the Web, or point your device to a printer and get a print of any painting

you like. At the same time, the museum would use the same URL to control

inventory.

HP has developed a software

in this direction. The software, called E-Squirt, is in alpha prototype

release, and is freely downloadable from http://cooltown.hp.com/code.htm.

A prototype E-Squirt

installation would consist of one or more E-Squirt clients and an E-Squirt

server. At present, the E-Squirt client software is available for HP’s

Jordana 400, 600, and 800 series with WinCE and SH3 or ARM processor; and

PalmOS platforms. The server software is available for Win 98-based PC

servers. The server needs to have an Internet connection, and an IR

port/add-on IR dongle.

E-Squirt allows you to

transfer a URL over a short-range wireless link. So, you can use E-Squirt in

your PDA, mobile phone, or wristwatch. Your device may or may not be

connected to the Web or even to a network. It can "squirt" the URL–using

infrared, for instance–to another device like a PC, printer, projector,

etc, that’s either connected to the Web directly or to another device,

which in turn is connected to the Web. If the device it’s squirting to

doesn’t have IR capability built in, you can add IR ports as accessories.

E-Squirt has the potential to

give you access to lots of resources on the fly. For example, you can store

your documents on the Web, save their URLs in your handheld, and print them

by squirting the URL to a printer. Similarly, you can save your presentation

on the Web, load its URLs on your mobile device, and make your presentation

at the client’s site by squirting its URL to the LCD projector.

E-Squirt is also aimed at

interacting with a device called Beacon. Beacons are small infrared

transceivers, which broadcast URLs. So, your E-Squirt-enabled device can

receive beaconed URLs, from say paintings in the museum. You can then fetch

Web pages directly on your device if it’s connected to the Web, or squirt

the URLs to another Web appliance.

E-Squirt is in version 1 at

present, and allows you to send and receive beacons, as well as squirt URLs

to printers or displays (such as an LCD projector) via a PC server. Version

2, which is set for release sometime this year, will allow PC-less printing,

and will include support for security.