Place-based Services Platform Quickly Establishing Connectivity Services between Smart Devices and Equipment at Purpose-specific Places

Recent years have seen the increasing adoption of smart devices in places where people gather for specific purposes, such as stores and schools. Hitherto, the realization of services to link people's smart devices to others' smart devices or equipment at a given place required a multitude of prior set-up processes for users, on the one hand, and complicated programming for application developers, on the other. Thus, Fujitsu Laboratories has developed platform technology for place-based services, enabling connectivity services to be established quickly, linking people's smart devices to others' smart devices or equipment at a given place without a need for member registration or driver installation. The technology may achieve a reduction of up to 90% in the time required for developing application programs to enhance the connectivity at places where people gather for particular purposes. Potential applications of this technology include facilitating group study in a school, providing product information to a customer's smart device in a store, or introducing merchandise by linking devices to a big screen display. This paper explains the component technologies for the place-based services platform and its applications, drawing on some actual cases.