WebCall - A Rich Context Mobile Research Framework

The ever-increasing capability of mobile devices enables many mobile services far beyond a traditional voice call. In this paper, we present WebCall, a research framework on how to share and utilize the rich contextual information about users, such as phonebook, indoor and outdoor location, and calendar. WebCall also demonstrates a few services (e.g. human powered questions and answers) that can be built on top of user context. Third-party services can be integrated with WebCall through a simple API and potentially benefit from context filtering. An invitation mechanism is introduced to enable bootstrapping user base. Privacy concern is addressed by giving full control to users on how to share their information.