[Thali-talk] Yaron's Weekly Update - 9/8/2014

[Michael Rogers]

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On 08/09/14 21:29, Yaron Goland wrote:
> Last Week:
> 
> * *TL;DR - Squashed remaining known bugs, wrote up **instructions
> for writing a Thali app* 
> <http://www.thaliproject.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Guide_to_writing_apps_for_Thali>*and
>
> 
published a **blog article* <http://www.goland.org/thalimesh/>*on my
> research on mesh solutions for Thali (short answer: there are no 
> good ones right now, so Wi-Fi direct is probably our best
> fallback)*

Hi Yaron,

Thanks for writing this article. I agree there's no mesh solution
that's ready for mass deployment on off-the-shelf devices, so we need
to look at single-hop solutions. I also agree that the biggest problem
with Wi-Fi Direct is getting the password from the AP to the clients.
QR codes would work, but on Android the SSID and password are
generated randomly each time a group is created - will users be
willing to scan a new QR code every time they want to connect?

Although it doesn't have built-in support for groups, Bluetooth has a
nicer user experience on Android - once you know the other device's
MAC address you can connect at any later time without bothering the
user. On Android and Linux you can connect without pairing if you
disable Bluetooth's encryption and authentication (I assume you're
providing your own anyway). I don't know about the pairing situation
on Windows or Mac.

iOS devices won't communicate with non-iOS devices over Bluetooth, but
there's a new API that provides a wrapper around Bluetooth, Wi-Fi
Direct and normal Wi-Fi:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/MultipeerConnectivity/Reference/MultipeerConnectivityFramework/

Some hype:

http://www.wired.com/2014/03/apple-multipeer-connectivity/

Cheers,
Michael
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