Project Outline

Welcome! This is the website for the UCT Computer Science 2012 Honours project, GROUT.

The project title “Grout” comes from the paste used for filling up or connecting the gaps between tiles or floors. In particular, the Windows Phone has a unique tiling interface where the use of tiles is prominent. The Grout project will develop software that uses these tiles to represent people and also aim to connect people together. This is done by promoting interaction between the tiles that represent people and having smart phones offer services. The software becomes the link between people and hence the name Grout.

Due to the increasing costs of mobile internet, data transfer to and from smart phones have become restricted. Users only use a small percentage of their smart phone’s networking capabilities due to the costs that come along with it. This creates a need for the development of software that can facilitate the exchange of information directly between smart phones. Although this software acts as a tool for smart phone users to share files, it can also serve as a link between people. The aim of this project is to create software that not only allows reliable wireless transfer of information between smart phones, but also has a user interface that supports the interaction between people. As a result, this allows the connecting of smart phones together at a software level but simultaneously connecting people together at a social level. The transfer of information is not limited to only the transfer of media files but also can extend to offering services over the network. Example: A smart phone user might offer file compression services where files are sent to the smart phone and a compressed version is sent back to the user.

This project was divided into three separate components. Specifically, Sashen Singh will be handling the Human Computer Interaction, Bryan Davies the Device Discovery and Tsu-Shiuan Lin the Wireless Data Transfer.