Mobile ad hoc collaboration

The combination of personal mobile devices and mobile adhoc networks creates opportunities for new forms of mobile collaboration involving interaction between people who are co-located and organized in an unforeseeable ad hoc way. Possible application scenarios include informal social interactions in public places, opportunistic meetings in office settings, ad-hoc collaboration of emergency response teams and educational multi-user applications for use in classrooms. The success of ad hoc networks may largely depend on the applications and social benefits they provide. Yet, prior research in this area has primarily focused on network technologies while mostly ignoring questions relating to the design, use and evaluations of such applications. Consequently, there is a general lack of understanding for how such networks can facilitate ad hoc collaboration