The Daidalus Project: Video On Pervasive Communication

Today I came across this interesting video which shows the vision of the Daidalos project for pervasive communication in the future. There is lots of talk in the industry lately on voice call continuity, i.e. switching a voice call between circuit and packet switched networks. The vision of the Daidalos project goes one step beyond and shows how a call could be switched between different networks and devices and how additional information such as video streams and textual information are automatically included in the call when the current device allows and the situation requires. The roots of this concept are also known as "rich call".

So far, I’ve been somewhat reluctant to see a benefit in voice call continuity (VCC). Since watching the video however, I can quite clearly see the benefits of VCC and its evolution. An interesting example made in the video is two people discussing a trip to the airport. The person at the other of the connection end gives his conversational partner further information about whom he is to meet at the airport and when. The call continues when he goes to his car and the on-board computer automatically extracts the location information given by the other party to calculate a route to the airport and to reserve a parking place.

Diadalos stands for "Designing Advanced network Interfaces for the Delivery and Administration of Location independent, Optimised personal Services" and is a project funded as an EU Framework Programme 6 Integrated Project.