What Makes a Kiosk Application Different?
In a typical PC application, the user is also the owner of the PC and therefore has complete access to the other functions of the PC; however, in a kiosk application the user must not have access to any portion of the PC outside of the content displayed by the kiosk application. Furthermore, the kiosk must run unattended for extended periods of time often in remote locations. This creates a security and control challenge that we solve by having a C++ wrapper control and manage your web application. KioWare executes at a very high OS control level, and the only way KioWare will give up control to the user is if the user knows how to initiate exit from the wrapper AND knows the password. Furthermore, since every navigation between pages must pass through our wrapper, we can perform detailed usage logging and monitor activity.
In a typical web application the user's browser is remotely located from the web server, so there are bandwidth tradeoffs with every item displayed by the web server. Generally in a kiosk application, the kiosk is also a web server, so bandwidth intensive items can be stored locally effectively removing performance considerations and opening up opportunities to do tasks that cannot be contemplated in a typical web application. In addition, server side and client side actions are truly server side and client side in a typical web application, but in a kiosk application they both can happen on the same PC, so that processes that typically would have to be either server side or client side can now be processed on either side. Finally, in a typical web application it is generally trivial to update the web application content because the web application is either located in your server room, or worst case at your ISP. However, in a kiosk application, the web server can be located at the kiosk, or more accurately at kiosks spread all over the country, and there may only be dial-up access to the kiosks.
To summarize, a kiosk application has significant security and control issues over a typical PC application, and at the same time it also has significant opportunities for improved performance and functionality compared to a typical web application; however, application content updating can be more problematic.
For more information, read our white paper available on our download page.
Return to top
©2003-2008 KioWare®, All rights reserved