Navigation application with mobile telephony: shortest-path

In the age of information explosion and technological advancement, ubiquitous location-awareness is becoming a significant feature in the era of telecommunication. The ubiquitous location-awareness is a requirement for certain telecommunication or mobile applications that uses location information. This development is linked to the tremendous growth in the number and the sophistication of mobile phone and mobile technology. And the trend continues stealthily invading mobile domains especially of those that utilise geographical positions or location information of the mobile devices or that of the mobile user [1]. Various ubiquitous location-awareness applications that are available in the market are normally tailored to a specific technology. Most of these applications require support from a combination of a number of technologies such as location sensor technologies (GPS, MSR RADAR, etc), service providers, and the Internet. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is an important element in any the ubiquitous location-awareness applications since it contains all the geographical information of the cities, roads, streets [1]. This information is obtained from sources such as topographic maps and satellite images, which are then filtered and delivered to the applications. Nevertheless visualisation plays an important role especially in displaying spatial data in an image format. This image format is useful in aiding the user’s understanding of the meaning of the data displayed [1]. Presently, there are very few mobile mapping applications that are available in the market that display the spatial data in an image format. This paper will introduce a prototype of mobile shortest path navigation application that concentrates on roads or streets in urban areas such as in Manchester City. The application prototype aims to provide mobile phone users with a wider and immediate accessibility to the road information to enable them to navigate visually around the city and to display the shortest path or route between two different locations in a map format. The application should be user-friendly, as the services provided are deemed to be more comprehensive and innovative in the future. It has to be highly usable and accessible to all targeted groups of mobile phone users anywhere around the world.