VNC-BASED ACCESS TO REMOTE COMPUTERS FROM CELLULAR PHONES

We propose a virtual network computing (VNC) based architecture for accessing the desktops of remote computers from a cellular phone. A viewer is provided on the cellular phone that enables the user to see and manipulate the desktop of various remote systems such as MS Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX. The system to be accessed must be running a VNC server and it must be attached to a network. A proxy is used to send the image of the desktop to the cellular phone, to convert different devices, to suppress network traffic, and to support recovery from an unscheduled disconnection. To reduce user effort and solve problems inherent to the cellular phone’s small screen, several functions are provided on the cellular viewer. Frequently used screen areas can be assigned and restored quickly by using the Shortcut function. The Guidance function can be used to show the current key assignments. Two areas can be viewed at the same time by the Twin view function. A prototype of the proposed architecture has been implemented using Java and has been tested on a Java-enabled cellular phone emulator.