The design and development of infrastructured Mutual Assistant Networks

The proliferation of social networks and Internet-enabled mobile devices has allowed people to stay in touch with friends, and thus open up the potential of many novel human-centric applications. We propose one such application called Mutual Assistant Network (MAN). MAN allows people to ask for assistance from other people in a specific region, and share the local and timely information that cannot be obtained in time from the Internet. In addition, we describe the design and implementation of MAN on the Android platform. In order to minimize the necessity of installing software on mobile devices, inquirers submit their queries in web pages which repliers may use any web browsers to view and respond. We also implemented Mobile Device Web Access Framework (MDWAF) that allows a web page to access underlying hardware for repliers to create responses. We believe that MAN may promote social interaction and thus extend the senses of human beings to a normally inaccessible locations via knowledge sharing.