The remote control is often associated with either RC cars or the TV remote. The importance of having an off-site controller is crucial when dealing with complicated, or numerous tasks involving devices separated by long distances. At least, this is what RealVNC case studies expressed.

RealVNC extended its VNC Enterprise Edition support to mobile devices, including phones and PDAs that run on Symbian, Windows Mobile, MAC OS X, Linux, and BlackBerry platforms. This will mean that PCs will be able to be managed via mobile devices, something not exactly new, and phones will be able to be controlled by PCs, which is not new either. What is different in this case, is that it all involves numerous devices, and encryption, this is done in an industrial scale.

VNC Mobile Edition must be installed on a mobile device in order to be controlled in a two-way. In case a systems administrator wishes to test, manage, or support applications, a computer can connect to a number of devices. From the other direction, the phone, not necessarily a smartphone, as Java phones are supported as well, can access desktop functionality by connecting to the VNC server installed on the computers in question.

In terms of features, RealVNC possesses the following:

• Support for both touch screen and non-touch screen devices
• Support for device-specific hardware keys
• Scale, scroll and change Viewer display orientation on the mobile device
• Performance and power-saving optimisations
• Ability to start a VNC Server on a mobile device remotely

In terms of encryption, VNC Mobile Edition uses a 2048-bit RSA key to verify identity in server authentication, while for secure communication, it uses a 128-bit AES key.

An interesting use of a VNC solution, not involving mobile phones, but it could very well involve mobile phones, was RealVNC's project with Polar Bears International and SeeMore Wildlife Systems. The latter two needed the installation of a remote network of cameras in Hudson Bay, Canada, to monitor polar bears.

The unmanned cameras were powered by methanol fuel cells. The IP-based network system was comprised of digital microwave links which transmitted images from the location, to the town of Churchill, which in turn, was connected to the control centre in Alaska via the internet. A Tundra Buggy fed live Polar Bear Cam streaming video through a 45MB wireless link to Churchill, and then to the National Geographic website. The RealVNC solution worked in any platform or operating system, and could be accessed through a downloadable interface or through a web browser. The team involved could log in, manage and download images from a computer or mobile device.

This gives you further ideas of what could be done from a phone. The RTTI (Real-time traffic information) program currently run by Nokia, used to deliver traffic information could be run using a similar concept to remote control and monitoring. Complex systems that involved muiti-device management, either from or to a phone are also achievable from such solutions, which not always need large corporations to make use of them.