User Interface Transformation Method for PC Remote Control with Small Mobile Devices

One problem with controlling remote PCs via small mobile devices such as cellular phones is the difference between PC GUIs and mobile device UIs (screen sizes, input devices etc.). To solve the problem, we propose a method for transforming PC GUIs into mobile device UIs. The essence of our method is to read GUI screens in order to obtain current PC screen information with a GUI accessibility method. The screen information data is transformed into email/HTML-formatted textual data so that users can browse the data with an emailer or a Web browser. Users can send their input operations to PCs by email replies or Web operations (hyperlink selection/form inputs). Because the PC screen data transferred to mobile devices are not images but textual data, our method requires less data transfer time and lower cost than other image-based methods. In addition, our method enables users to interact with PC applications more efficiently than others because annoying screen zoom in/out operations are not required.