‘BoardCast’ puts your SMS on an electronic board

Imagine this: You’re stuck in traffic along the South Superhighway when out of the blue you see a text message for you. Nothing unusual? But what if you notice that the text message appears on an electronic billboard?

Well, this scenario may no longer be farfetched as you may think because just recently, a new and revolutionary application called BoardCast was developed.

BoardCast allows users to send their messages and have these messages appear on an electronic billboard. Developed by Infinit-e Asia, BoardCast was one of the winning applications in the recently concluded Nokia Mobile Java Challenge Contest.

"We at Infinit-e Asia are proud that we have developed this application," says Infinit-e Asia president Dave Fernando. "BoardCast complements the lifestyle of Filipinos, who view mobile phones as indispensable tools to daily living. BoardCast is a thrilling development for everyone and will surely take texting to whole new levels of fun and excitement."

BoardCast is a mobile electronic billboard broadcasting system that works via three modules – a J2ME Module, the Web Module and the Station Module.

The J2ME Module is the main user interaction agent and is the starting point for all BoardCast requests. It presents a step-by-step menu where you can customize your message’s font color and background color. It also gives you the option to attach a clip art image. You can also identify a BoardCast station where you want the message to be displayed.

When you are done creating the message, the J2ME module will send your request to the BoardCast Web Module for further processing.

But if you think you can just sent any message, think again! Before processing a user request, the Web Module first checks your message for profanities. Message censoring is done by comparing your recipient’s name, the message and your name to a list of prohibited words stored in the system database. Ten censored words are included in the censored list, where new words can be added, updated or removed by accessing the BoardCast database.

If the message passes, a confirmation message will be sent, which includes the BoardCast station and the estimated display schedule.

This display schedule and the entire message content are then saved in the system database to be pushed to the Station Module for broadcast. The time interval between the end of processing and the broadcast time for display schedules can be customized.

The BoardCast Station Modules are electronic billboards that manage queuing and displaying of messages. The Web Module via SMS, Web or Manual Push, then forwards the successfully processed messages to the appropriate billboards.

For those interested in BoardCast, contact Liesl Lim at 632-0777 or visit the Infinit-e Asia offices at the 10th floor, Centerpoint bldg., J. Vargas Avenue corner Garnet Road, Ortigas Center, Pasig City, or e-mail at www.infinit-e.net.