Automatic Discovery and Execution of Personal Applications from Shared IO Devices

Shared office information appliances such as copiers, scanners and meeting-room displays are increasingly being integrated into complex electronic document workflows. To support this new role these appliances are being designed with advanced features such as optical character recognition, networked storage, content-based routing and integration with back-end databases, yet availability of these features is often hampered by various factors. Here we present an architecture, code named Odessa, that moves all task-specific processing off the office appliance and on to a user´s own device: PC / laptop, or smartphone. Key features of the architecture include a simple RESTful HTTP application interface and automatic service discovery.