An information delivery system with automatic summarization for mobile commerce

Wireless access with handheld devices is a promising addition to the WWW and traditional electronic business. Handheld devices provide convenience and portable access to the huge information space on the Internet without requiring users to be stationary with network connection. Many customer-centered m-services applications have been developed. The mobile computing, however, should be extended to decision support in an organization. There is a desire of accessing most update and accurate information on handheld devices for fast decision making in an organization. Unfortunately, loading and visualizing large documents on handheld devices are impossible due to their shortcomings. In this paper, we introduce the fractal summarization model for document summarization on handheld devices. Fractal summarization is developed based on the fractal theory. It generates a brief skeleton of summary at the first stage, and the details of the summary on different levels of the document are generated on demands of users. Such interactive summarization reduces the computation load in comparing with the generation of the entire summary in one batch by the traditional automatic summarization, which is ideal for wireless access. The three-tier architecture with the middle-tier conducting the major computation is also discussed. Visualization of summary on handheld devices is also investigated. The automatic summarization, the three-tier architecture, and the information visualization are potential solutions to the existing problems in information delivery to handheld devices for mobile commerce. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.