Do you have a Facebook friend? From now on you will be able to know that he is in your immediate vicinity

Technion researchers have developed software that allows a Facebook friend to discover a friend, or a friend of a friend, who happens to be in their immediate vicinity

Technion researchers from the Faculty of Computer Science have developed software that allows a Facebook friend to discover a friend, or a friend of a friend, who happens to be in their immediate vicinity. He will be able to do this even if both of them are not connected to the Internet at the same moment. The Technion submitted a patent application for the innovative development.
About a year ago, the researchers from the Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion developed software that enables direct communication between computers and portable computers wirelessly (WiFi, without an intermediary such as an Internet provider. The Technion researchers made the software available free of charge to all computer owners in the world.
Direct communication between computers was not common until then, because it was very complicated and involved a long process of filling in fields and pressing many keys, so that even the professionals avoided it. The new software of the Technion researchers also offered applications that did not exist until now.
The software was developed as part of the doctoral thesis of Vadim Darbkin, Gabi Kliot and Alon Kama, under the guidance of Professor Roy Friedman from the Faculty of Computer Science. They built a user-friendly application platform, which allows simple communication between computers, in a close environment (range of tens of meters). So, for example, you can use it to transfer dozens of photos from computer to computer in less than a minute and full-length movies in fifteen minutes and even less, depending on the age of the computer and the speed of the wireless network card installed in it. You can also chat or play games, such as chess.
"For example, employees who go to an exhibition abroad and sit in remote seats on the plane, can now work together on their presentation during the flight," says Professor Friedman.
Since then, the software, called "WiPeer", has been published. About fifty thousand downloads of it from the Internet have already been recorded.
Now the doctoral students Vadim Derbkin and Gabi Kliot, together with the students Lior Biran and Tomer Einav, also under the guidance of Professor Roy Friedman, have added the new development, called Peersonalizer, from the word "personalization" for a member of the network. "Students will thus be able to expand their dating network on campus," the researchers explain. "A businessman waiting at the airport will be able to meet a friend of his friend, who is also waiting in the terminal for his plane, thus expanding his network of business acquaintances. Of course, this can be done on other social networks."
In the future, they will be able to use the method on cell phones, without the need for an intermediary such as the cell phone company.