Chameleon apps for femtocells

Femtocell developer Ubiquisys has been working with Intrinsyc Software International on UX-Zone, an application that changes the appearance of the Android phone interface automatically as you enter your home or office. This can provide more flexibility to operators and ease of use to the consumer.
As you arrive at a building with a femtocell, your phone automatically switches over from the outside network to the femtocell, and mobile operators are looking at ways of harnessing this combination of fast low-cost data and automatic presence to develop new services for their customers.
UX-Zone changes the standard Android user interface by switching themes to reflect the phone's location. For instance when arriving home, the phone switches to the femtocell and a "Home" theme instantly appears. The home theme does not just look different; it has new icons for high bandwidth entertainment services like video streaming, social networking and home network integration, taking advantage of the fast low-cost data provided by the femtocell.The software from Intrinsyc incorporates femtocell presence triggers from the Ubiquisys FemtoApps initiative.
On leaving home, the interface returns to normal, and the icons for high bandwidth applications that may not be suitable for the outside network, disappear. On arrival at the office, an entire new range of enterprise application icons appear on a new "Office" interface designed specifically for business productivity. Accordingly, one flexible Android device can be simultaneously tuned for home, mobile and work.
The potential goes beyond home and office. For example when entering a museum the phone interface could change automatically to provide an optimised experience. Equally when a consumer enters their favourite store the phone could adjust to provide the latest news and offers.

"Femtocells are a great breakthrough in both the usability and breadth of applications on mobiles," said Andrew Hurdle, Vice President of Business Development, Intrinsyc. "UX-Zone simplifies the user experience by mirroring the applications with the user's environment."

"The vision of a "chameleon" phone which changes its look and feel depending on its environment used to be the preserve of science fiction," said Keith Day, VP Marketing, Ubiquisys. "The combination of our femtocell technology and the Android operating system makes this a reality."