Project PDA

Introduces User Agent Profiles that can be used to advertise handset capabilities to applications servers and other entities. This means that content can be better adapted for different types of devices.

User Agent Profile (UAProf) specification is concerned with capturing capability and preference information for wireless devices. This information can be used by content providers to produce content in an appropriate format for the specific device.

A UAProf file describes the capabilities of a mobile handset, including Vendor, Model, Screensize, Multimedia Capabilites, Character Set support, and more. Recent UAProfiles have also begun to include data conforming to MMS, PSS5 and PSS6 schemas, which includes much more detailed data about video, multimedia, streaming and MMS capabilities.

A mobile handset sends a header within a http request, containing the URL to its UAProf. The http header is usually "HTTP-X-WAP-PROFILE", but sometimes may look more like "HTTP-19-PROFILE", "HTTP-WAP-PROFILE" or a number of other similar headers.

UAProf production for a device is voluntary: for GSM devices, the UAProf is normally produced by the vendor of the device (e.g. Nokia, Samsung, LG) whereas for CDMA/BREW Devices it's more common for the UAProf to be produced by the Telecommunications Company (e.g. Verizon, Sprint).

The Jena RDF Framework developed at HP Labs is used to implement a negotiation algorithm similar to that used by Apache Web Server. As CC/PP iscompatible with the forthcoming Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) User Agent Profile (UAProf) these techniques are applicable to the next generation of WAP devices. This is demonstrated using an example profile taken from thecurrent WAP Forum documentation.