AT&T PERSONALINK (SM) - A PUBLIC NETWORK FOR SMART AGENT PICS

T. Moody

What is Magic Cap?

Magic Cap is apmprictary operatiag systanused in PICsthat aredmlopedby manben ofthe General Magic AUiancc. Cumntly, there are two m i w f % u " s of these PICs witb publicly available products; Smy and Motorok. PaaaJaoic hap been c' Unitai States. Inthe near future, Magic Cap will be availableon PCs running Windows".

rtingprotorype& ofits device at many electronic shows inthe

T. Moody is with AT&T's CoIIJUmcr Inttractivc Services Unit, New Jtrscy. 0 1995 The Institution of Electrical Engineers. Printed and published by the IEE, Savoy Place, London WCPR OBL. UK.

w c Cap Contpins, as part of its opedug system, a Telescript E q m . Uagrc Cap uses the Telescnpt -to -and Tclescript Agents. Though AT&T P " k ' isnotdependartonMagicCaporPICs,thish d Y b o m l y - * to crateandsad Telescriptag~ts to theAT&TPc"k . service networls. we do emrisiOa aQne wkaTdesuipt Engines will operate inmauyenvirmments inodditiontothe Maglccap m s y s t a n .

Smart messages immssap that may contain scripts that will cause certain actionst0 ocwwhcnthc recipient interads with the message. For example, ausercan send an imitation with reply buttons (e.g., can amxi, canaot attend). Touching QIC oftbbuttons causes the scriptto create a new message addressedtothc original sender contliningtkuscr's respoaa. Messagg canalsocolltpin dtwarcthat is nutrrnntirally installed whcn auser clicks on a button. Messages may also be &to aunmmceavailabilityofproducts and suvices. By touching a button, the user can requesttbe product or subscriitothc service.

Ibe hcilities pmvided by Magicmail (e.g., d b o x , broadcast, distribution lists) can be used by other Telescript enabled applicatioas. Th rcusc of thcse objects by ather applications will the develop" work rqumd to provide new servicest0endysers.

How do Agents get into Tekrcript Engines?

The AT&T P c r s " k . ServiceplatformenablestheP1Ctourn"icatewitbtheTelescnpt Engmc. 'The plar&ds resparubilitia 1vt to d y trans& the agmt bdwcQl the PIC and the network, efficiently route the agentbetw#nTelescnptEngiae(s), andprovidethcnetwwlcrmnagaacntfiurctonstomaintainthe overall aetwork. In irddition, th: platform provides administratl 'M services for enhanceddirectoryservice.

billing, customer care aud an

There arc additional saxrity checks within AT&T PersonaLink Service that are proprietary and will not be elaboratedon in this papa.

AT&T Persodink Service Support Systems

Wirelers Accw

The Mag~cmail service was designed with themobile professional inmind. Wireless access is akeytothe service's acapmcc. Attempts wcrc mule inboth the Telcscriptapplications andthe language to " i z e t h e size ofdata that needs to bet"it&d betweenthe service andthe PIC. For example, at the M a g i d applicahion level, ustndo~rreodtodownkrpdallth:messagesmtbeirmailbax.'Ibcycanselectivelyretrinnmessagcsbasedon whotbemesspee is fiom, the subject, and the size ofthemessage, once they have amailbox summary. At the Telcscript hi, Telescript Qlcadmg d e s dehwhat parts ofthe agent may be omit&d, thereby dcmashg the amountofdatathatnaedstobetraasmitted

Actual time that a PIC is raquiredto be in range ofabase station is also minimized as Telcscript uses a remm programming-. The user has little needto conQluallyintcractwiththeAT&TPersonaLink Service. The

retnmd.'lhisisomofthe baditsofastozwmd-forwardarchitecture incambinationwitharanotep"m& language. Theuser is allowcdto aon about M y with their PIC into anas WfLenwireleSs acccss maynat be available (e.g., inside a tunnel, inside scwc buildmg).

Third party applications could be developed to h a the existing service to allow special "rules" for wireless

are. met, or a short notification sent whenncw mail arrives. This is useful as all PICs an rapred to supporta wirehe wnucction. Sessions that require s i g " t data mftz may be done morc &cicntly over wireline.

user sends inthdr agent, andlata, at amore d e n t time, wllcctstbe i&" .

PICs. These might include the capablllty to send mail to the PIC via wirtless means only if certain size wnstraints

Wireltss access to AT&T P e n d i n k Service will be available in the future, in the United States, us& a & b i d e radio network with automatic e and cnd-tocnd ~ncrypticm facilities.

References

' White. J: Tclcscript Techoology: Thc Foundation for thc Electronic Marketplace," Genaal Mag~c White Papcr, 1994.