New Mobile Technologies
iBeacons
The iBeacon technology is the latest technology in the field of interaction. Technically speaking, it is a protocol defined by Apple and built on top of Bluetooth4.0 (Craig,2014). Trademarked by Apple, It is a Bluetooth Low energy device that emits a signal which can be received by apps which were developed by people. IBeacons can help developers to design apps that interact with the outside world.
IBeacons enables IOS devices to send push notifications to other devices in close proximity. It can be used with IOS devices only but Andriod devices can receive notifications but they cannot send notifications. An iBeacon broadcasts its presence only. It doesn’t broadcast content. In addition, any data or content you want to broadcast should be retrieved from another source such as Google Drive. It can be used to help you to buy things or to order your meal without speaking with the waiter.
The first use of iBeacon in Education and libraries was the collaboration project between Haileybury School in Australia and Bryanston School in the UK by using school elockers. School elockers is the first learning management system to integrate iBeacons in it. Students used iBeacons to receive some notification while they are in the library or somewhere else.
Possible uses:
- Shelving notices
- Event notices
- Circulation notices
- Tracking
- Interactive reading
Eddysone
Eddysone is an open beacon format released by Google. The process of setting up an IBeacon to broadcast can be completed by Google Platform (go.co/beacons). There are many advantages for this:
- It designed for android and IOS devices
- It is user-friendly as you can find everything needed in one platform
- Full compliance with Bluetooth Core specification
- It is more secure as The UUID is considered as QR code version of a beacon
Google has adopted a new model different from the old model (one feature for one iBeacon) different features from one iBeacon. You can register your iBeacon with Google Platform. There is also a code lab which make it easy for developers to design applications
I think people will start to use Eddystone rather than iBeacon for several reasons. Firstly, it is open source from Google, while IBeacon is a technology controlled by apple. Thirdly, Eddystone is designed to handle a huge data
Libraries are starting to take advantage of this new technology. I think we will a witness many uses of beacons in the libraries especially as they continue to develop and improve
