Appear

Appear
For other uses, see Appearance (disambiguation).
Appear Networks Systems AB
Type Privately held company
Industry Computer software
Founded 2001
Headquarters Flag of Sweden.svg Kista, Sweden
Products AppearIQ
Appear Context Engine
Appear Provisioning Module
Appear Sync Module
Appear Device Management Module
Appear Notification Module
Website www.appearnetworks.com
Appear offices in Kista, Sweden

Appear Networks Systems AB is a software company specializing in enterprise mobility. Its suite of products is a mobile middleware platform designed to power mobile applications and services based on context awareness.
Context awareness is the use of situational information aiming at reducing information overload and ensuring users have the information when and where they need it. WLAN is used for sending and receiving data, as well as positioning the user. Other context information such as user profile, network bandwidth, device type can be collected in order to refine the services presented to the user.

A recent research[1] by IDC has shown that companies in travel and transportation, the public sector and telecommunications — including Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Rail), RATP (Paris subway), SNCF (French railway), Connex (Groupe Veolia Environnement), SL (Stockholm subway), the University of Geneva, the city of Kista, Sweden and Orange Business Services have started to deploy context-aware services for their employees, and are considering deploying similar services for their public users, leveraging the launch of the new generation of GSM/WLAN dualphones.

The company is privately held and headquartered in Kista, Sweden and is one of the new generation of telecom startups created after the IT market downturn of 2001.

Contents

History

Appear's foundation is the result of the cooperation between 3 universities: Harvard Business School (HBS), M.I.T. MediaLab (MIT) and Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH). In 2000, initial research was conducted on context-aware services and local wireless broadband networks both at KTH and HBS, under the project name "Bluesolid". In Stockholm, a team of KTH engineers designed the first prototype of the mobile middleware platform. In 2001, Bluesolid was renamed Appear Networks and established its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden.

Products

The Appear Platform (AppearIQ) adds a layer of context-aware technology to existing enterprise WLAN infrastructure or wide-area networks. It gathers context of use data and builds a model based on the information needs of end-users. Available services are filtered against this profile to determine what data is relevant, and this information is then proactively pushed to the wireless device.

The solution is IP based and compatible with PDAs, smartphones, TabletPCs, UMPCs and laptops.

The Appear Context Engine (ACE) gathers all known information about the device, the user and his context including physical location, date/time, device type, user roles, network IP address range, user locale and other customized context providers, e.g. temperature, available battery, etc. The context engine derives a description of the services that should be available on the device and passes it to the modules deployed on top of the ACE.

Appear provides several context-aware modules such as push/provisioning, synchronization and device management.

The modules compare the current state of the device with the context-aware services set out for the device and order the adaptive client to update the corresponding services on the device. Context information is used throughout the entire life-cycle of the service: selection based on context, filtering of individual services and enhancement of services at boot or runtime.

Referenced projects

  • Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Rail) Railpocket project [2]: 10 000 Wi-Fi/GPRS enabled handheld devices for NS staff.
  • SL (Stockholm subway) Uppkopplade Medarbetare project [3]: SL mobile workforce equipped with Wi-Fi enabled PDAs for customer information.
  • RATP (Paris Subway & Buses) Wireless employee project [4]: customer information applications on mobile devices.
  • SNCF (French Rail)[5]: Appear IQ technology component for the multimedia portal and Internet access on SNCF’s TGV high-speed train services.

European projects

  • MIDAS [6] is a STReP (Specific Targeted Research Project) project under the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme, focussing on "Mobile and Wireless Systems and Platforms beyond 3G".
  • SIMS [7] is a STReP project under the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme. SIMS aims to provide tools for design and validation of service components with semantic interfaces.
  • MUSIC [8] is an Integrated Project under the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme. MUSIC aims to provide an open platform that makes it technically and commercially feasible for the wider IT industry to develop innovative mobile applications.

Awards

  • Appear and Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Rail) win the 2007 Cisco Networkers Award as Best Mobility and Wireless Project of the Year [9].
  • Kista Science City, using Appear’s context-aware software infrastructure, awarded best-practice for Technology Innovation at Digital Cities Convention 2006 [10].
  • Appear Awarded Gold and Silver in 2006 Mobile Star Awards [11][12].
  • Appear wins Best Enterprise Wi-Fi Product award at the Wireless Broadband Innovation Awards 2006 [13].
  • Appear wins Best Enterprise Solution awards at Syntec Informatique/France Telecom Innovation Awards for the RATP (Paris subway & buses) employee project [14].

References

  1. ^ "Wireless Networking Best Practices in European Transportation: Will Context-Aware Services Improve the Business Case?". http://www.idc.com/downloads/TheoryPractice11-28-06.pdf. 
  2. ^ "Wireless Networking Best Practices in European Transportation: Will Context-Aware Services Improve the Business Case?". http://www.idc.com/MI/getdoc.jsp?containerId=PT03N. 
  3. ^ "Bättre information till resenärerna (in Swedish)". http://www.sl.se/Templates/Article.aspx?id=5374. 
  4. ^ "Nouvelles technologies: un nouveau prix pour la mobilité (in French)". http://www.ratp.fr/common/ressources/814.pdf. 
  5. ^ "Appear IQ is selected as a technology component by Capgemini for the multimedia portal and Internet access on SNCF’s TGV high-speed train services". http://www.appearnetworks.com/Appear-IQ-is-selected-as-a.html. 
  6. ^ "MIDAS (Middleware Platform for Developing and Deploying Advanced Mobile Services)". http://www.ist-midas.org. 
  7. ^ "SIMS (Semantic interfaces for mobile services)". http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=PROJ_IST&ACTION=D&RCN=79465. 
  8. ^ "MUSIC (Self-adapting applications for Mobile Users In ubiquitous Computing environments)". http://www.ist-music.eu/MUSIC. 
  9. ^ "Best Mobility and Wireless Project of the Year". http://www.cisconetworkersawards.com/winners2007.php?winner=best_mobility_and_wireless_project. 
  10. ^ "Kista Science City, using AppearIQ, awarded best-practice for Technology Innovation at Digital Cities Convention 2006". http://w2i.com/awards/overview___nominations/2006. 
  11. ^ "Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Rail) and Appear win 2006 Gold Mobile Star Awards". http://www.mobilevillage.com/yp/case_appear_ns.htm. 
  12. ^ "Kista Science City & Shopping Mall and Appear win 2006 Silver Mobile Star Awards". http://www.mobilevillage.com/yp/case_appear_kista.htm. 
  13. ^ "AppearIQ + Cisco 2700 Location Appliance as Best Enterprise Wi-Fi Product award at the Wireless Broadband Innovation Awards 2006". http://www.wbiawards.com/hall_of_fame.php. 
  14. ^ "Appear, Neotilus and RATP (Paris subway & buses) win “Best Enterprise Solution” award for the RATP employee project". http://www.syntec-informatique.fr/import/CP_trophees_innovation_juin_2006.pdf. 

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  • appear — ap·pear vi 1: to present oneself before a person or body having authority to appear before the officer who is to take the deposition Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 37(d): as a: to present oneself in court as a party to a lawsuit often… …   Law dictionary

  • Appear — Ap*pear , v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Appeared}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Appearing}.] [OE. apperen, aperen, OF. aparoir, F. apparoir, fr. L. appar?re to appear + par?reto come forth, to be visible; prob. from the same root as par?re to produce. Cf. {Apparent} …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • appear — 1 Appear, loom, emerge mean to come out into view. In use, however, they are only rarely interchangeable. Appear is weakest in its implication of a definite physical background or a source; consequently it sometimes means merely to become visible …   New Dictionary of Synonyms

  • appear — [v1] come into sight arise, arrive, attend, be present, be within view, blow in*, bob up*, break through, breeze in*, check in*, clock in*, come, come forth, come into view, come out, come to light*, crop up*, develop, drop in*, emerge, expose,… …   New thesaurus

  • appear — [ə pir′] vi. [ME aperen < OFr aparoir < L apparere < ad , to + perere, to come forth, be visible; akin to Gr peparein, to display] 1. to come into sight 2. to come into being [freckles appear on his face every summer] 3. to become… …   English World dictionary

  • appear — (v.) late 13c., to come into view, from stem of O.Fr. aparoir (12c., Mod.Fr. apparoir) appear, come to light, come forth, from L. apparere to appear, come in sight, make an appearance, from ad to (see AD (Cf. ad )) + parere to come forth, be… …   Etymology dictionary

  • Appear — Ap*pear , n. Appearance. [Obs.] J. Fletcher. [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • appear — appear, appeared For the type She appeared to have encouraged him, see perfect infinitive …   Modern English usage

  • appear — ► VERB 1) become visible or evident. 2) give a particular impression; seem. 3) present oneself publicly or formally, especially on television or in a law court. 4) be published. ORIGIN Latin apparere, from parere come into view …   English terms dictionary

  • appear — v. 1) (D; intr.) to appear against; for (she appeared against him in court) 2) (D; intr.) to appear to (she appeared to him in a dream) 3) (E) she appears to be well 4) (L; to) it appears (to me) that they will not come 5) (esp. BE) (S) to appear …   Combinatory dictionary

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