Applications

AT&T Laboratories has developed a number of applications for the Broadband Phone, all of which can be used whilst carrying out an audio conversation. These include:

• A shared sketchpad - whilst talking, users can draw maps and diagrams, play games or sketch a room layout. The drawing surface is visible at both ends of the call.
• Messaging: fax, voice-mail, email, chat, ...
• Directories: personal, corporate, national, ...
• Browsing the web
• Viewing video from Internet-connected cameras
• Storing photograph collections and showing images to the person at the other end
• Games including chess, pong, multi-player crossword, and more
• Digital music jukebox

However, the range of applications is potentially limitless, and they may be tailored to the environment in which the phones are used. A hotel might provide phones in the lobby which have just a few functions, such as calling a room or viewing the restaurant menu, whilst hotel room phones could also allow web-surfing, external calls, details of nearby shops, and express check-out functions.

New Broadband Phone applications can be developed and made available as desired without any modification to the phones themselves. One component of the Broadband Phone system is an SDK which makes it easy to build such new applications, either from scratch or based on an existing (legacy) application.