Date of Publication :11th May 2017

Abstract: Seamless media sharing between individual mobile devices is not so easily achievable by current products. Most devices rely on having to share physical files with other devices wirelessly through file transferring applications. However, media is not always treated like most files. Media sharing is usually a temporary “for-the-moment” situation, where a user may need to play a file on another device easily and quickly, and after they separate, the file is no longer required to persist on the other user’s device. Our proposed idea is for an application that can make such temporary, local media sharing quick and accessible, abstracting away the process of setting up a network and having to send each physical file between devices for a session and then have to delete the files after the session is complete. In our proposed application, users can create and connect to a logical group that is understood by the application and set up within the application. Once this group session is initiated, each user can freely explore the media library of each other user in the group and play any media file they so choose. By this method, the file is transferred over to the receiving device on demand and cached. This method does not require an internet connection or a nearby access point as each device could act as a local hotspot. In addition to this functionality, each user has the freedom to customize their privacy, specifying exactly which media files can be visible to other users and which files shouldn’t be. Along with this, we also propose a mode of synchronous play which can be used by the group members to create one common queue of media that anyone can contribute to and that plays, seeks and skips at the exact same time on all devices if the users wish to experience media together, but without having to use a single common audio output; each user can just use their own device and audio output peripheral.

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