DeviceAtlas data comes from a variety of sources. Some is gathered from public domain sources, such as the User-Agent Profile resource for devices and the excellent WURFL project. Some is licensed directly from device manufacturers, network operators and infrastructure and tools providers.
And, increasingly, data will be provided by you, the community of mobile developers and users. We hope that, as the users of the site contribute information (a little like a wiki), the knowledge becomes increasingly balanced and authoritative. Today users may access our site http://ta-da.mobi with any mobile device and run through a structured list of tests. Results are captured in real-time, validated and included in DeviceAtlas. More details are provided as part of our TA-DA documentation.
As well as aiming to capture information about every mobile device out there, we aim to capture as much valuable information about each one as possible. The focus is on properties that are actually useful for mobile content and service providers.
We have started by working closely with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and their mobile Device Descriptions Working Group. Together, we have defined a list of core properties that we aim to keep for every device.
In addition, we have added a range of additional properties that we think are valuable for web developers, and will continue to grow the list of properties as demand dictates.