Project CRUMBS

Start date

“Follow the crumbs to re-build your mobile social world”. This slogan highlights the CRUMBS platform concept as a new way of organising information in a social network based on users interacting with their physical environments while wandering around. This idea means that users will consume rich multimedia social content “stuck” in different places by using their mobile phone as a mixer between the real world, captured by the mobile camera, and the (crumbs) social content provided by CRUMBS users.
The key elements of this project are a Mobile Geo-Spatial Social Network and an Augmented Reality Engine. The first element will provide a set of different innovative Location-Based Social services that will make the most of the second element, the underlying Knowledge layer. Moreover, the entire geo-spatial social world of the users will be shown as rich multimedia objects floating in their mobiles overlapped with the real world captured by their mobile cameras. This will be made possible by using cutting-edge technology such as Augmented Reality and high-end mobile terminals.
These new kinds of services will enable new types of scenarios to develop where interesting social content, “crumbs”, is displayed to users in a non-intrusive fashion and intelligent way while they walk around. At the same time, they will be able to produce content everywhere leaving crumbs (traces) of their social activity. Therefore, the CRUMBS platform will definitely have a big impact on eBusiness, eTourism and eGovernment scenarios where new and innovative mobile services might occur, thus leading to different relationships either between users or between users and entities.
In order to demonstrate the CRUMBS concept, the platform will be tested in a real scenario, such as an institution (i.e. a council) and it will provide personalised services for this context. Relevant feedback will be taken back from this experience and will be used to shape the services and transform them into a real product. It is envisaged that the final product will be launched on the market.