Towards Ambient Community Services K. Demestichas, E. Adamopoulou, M. Theologou C. Desiniotis, J. Markoulidakis National Technical University of Athens 9, Iroon Polytechniou Str. Zografou, 157 73, GREECE tel. +30 210 7721493 Vodafone-Panafon (Greece) R&D Department 1-3, Tzavella Str. Halandri, 152 31, GREECE tel. +30 210 6702776 cdemest@cn.ntua.gr, eadam@cn.ntua.gr, theology@cs.ntua.gr Christos.Dessiniotis@vodafone.com, Yannis.Markoulidakis@vodafone.com Abstract The present paper introduces the innovative concept of a new type of services, called Ambient Community Services (ACS). The ACS concept utilizes information that resides in communities of mobile terminals, such as location, speed, sensor-related data or user-created multimedia content. After the collection, processing and filtering of these data, a number of innovative, heterogeneous value-added applications can be provided to the end-users, such as the provision of vehicular traffic conditions. ACS advances the social networking by allowing users to form cooperative, service-enabling communities. This paper includes a thorough description of the state-of- the-art, the proposed system architecture and communication flow, potential enabled applications, important implementation aspects, as well as future research activities. 1. Introduction The current mobile communications landscape is characterized by tremendous progress in the radio access technologies supported (GSM/GPRS, 3G, WiFi, DVB-T, etc.). This network-related evolvement, however, is tightly accompanied by a significant advancement in the field of mobile terminals. The increased capabilities of mobile devices, in terms of processing power, storage capacity, multimedia support, capturing capabilities etc., have set the path for expanding functionality from the network to the mobile terminal. In this sense, the mobile terminal can enhance its up to now role of being a service-delivery instrument to being a fully functional, service-enabling and content creation tool. This remarkable increase in the capabilities of the mobile terminal, along with its pervasion in the market, has elevated the terminal’s role into an irreplaceable, omnipresent device of the daily life. Consequently, a natural evolution is the use of the mobile terminal not only as a traditional communication-enabling device but also as an integral part of all expressions of the user’s personal life. Towards this vision, the mobile terminal can undertake the role of enhancing the social networking. This paper introduces a novel type of services targeted for mobile users, namely the Ambient Community Services (ACS). The aim is to explore the transition from explicit communication into delivering and receiving information through context disclosure, by exploiting the underlying spatial and temporal patterns within a local community. In particular, the ACS concept exploits the ability of the network to retrieve in real time useful data from multiple mobile terminals. The involved mobile terminals belong to specific communities. The collected data are impersonalized and can be generated either at the time of the request, or at an earlier time (in which case they remain stored in the terminal). Subsequently, the gathered data are processed (at the network side), in order to compose the target information or content that will be delivered to the requesting terminal. Our vision is to build an open framework based on the ACS concept that will enable the provision of various types of innovative services to the end-users. Example services include: Real Time Vehicular Traffic Conditions, Clubbing/Restaurant Information, File Sharing, Environmental Applications, Mobile Multiplayer Gaming, Emergency Services, Socializing Applications, and others.