PlaceAware: A tool for enhancing social interactions in urban places

The pervasiveness of mobile devices and short-range wireless networks deployed in urban areas have brought Weiser's vision of ubiquitous or pervasive computing into reality. The mobile devices weave themselves into urban dwellers' lives as an undetachable part. In urban places, there are not only people but also their devices' presence. Interestingly, devices can communicate wirelessly with each other in order to improve people's interactions. We call this phenomenon Place-based Virtual Community (PBVC), which includes people, devices, and their activities/interactions at the place in time. This paper introduces the PlaceAware application that can be used to enhance people's social interactions in urban areas. PlaceAware was built on top of the PBVC Architecture. © 2009 IEEE.