In this paper the authors experiment with multi-display mobile applications that can be used in an environment where multiple smart phones are co-located within the same physical space. Utilizing... Show More

In this paper the authors experiment with multi-display mobile applications that can be used in an environment where multiple smart phones are co-located within the same physical space. Utilizing Remote User Interface interaction metaphor and the REST architectural style they propose a solution that follows the Remote Model-View-Controller model, in such a way that client devices do not need to have application specific software pre-installed. The authors demonstrate the system with the Panorama Bricks application, for displaying, in a multi-display expanded view, street-view style mirror-world panoramas, in a synchronized manner. The architecture proves that such enhanced application scenarios are possible to implement even today, utilizing off-the-shelf mobile smart phones. Their evaluations prove that responsiveness levels are high, even in scenarios where multiple objects are overlaid on top of the mirror-world panoramas.

Mobile end user context has gained increasing attention in the mobile services industry. This article utilizes handset-based data, collected from 140 users, to examine smartphone usage in different... Show More

Mobile end user context has gained increasing attention in the mobile services industry. This article utilizes handset-based data, collected from 140 users, to examine smartphone usage in different place-related end user contexts. Smartphone usage is examined first on a high level by using smartphone usage session as a unit of analysis. Then the usage sessions are dismantled into application sessions for deeper analysis and application level study. According to the authors’ analysis, smartphone usage is highly diversified across users. For example, the daily smartphone usage time differs by orders of magnitude between users. They observed also that smartphones are used differently in different end user contexts. For example, some applications are clearly more context sensitive than others. The results imply that mobile services and applications need to adapt to user behavior in order to be personalized enough, and that context awareness can indeed be a worthwhile step towards this.

In a user-centric approach, the end-user wants the best Quality of Experience (QoE) and the highest context-awareness. Throughout end-user’s spatial mobility, service providers must continuously... Show More

In a user-centric approach, the end-user wants the best Quality of Experience (QoE) and the highest context-awareness. Throughout end-user’s spatial mobility, service providers must continuously adapt the end-user’s service session according to his or her new ambient context, without neglecting functional preferences and demanded Quality of Service (QoS). Many spatial mobility management solutions have been conceived to help operators managing the network part of their end-users’ sessions. However, this problem is not yet investigated on the service layer. For this purpose, the authors propose in this paper the concept of semantic handover. This concept acts on the service layer by analogy to the network’s handover mechanisms. It is based on three complementary roles: the initiator, that detects a spatial mobility and initiates the semantic handover; the decider, that decides which services should be replaced in the end-user’s service session and what are their ubiquitous ambient counterparts; and the executor, that executes the decision and adapts the end-user’s service session to the new ambient context. This solution is based on highly scalable distributed coverage zones. Service providers must deploy their ubiquitous services, having the same functionality and an equivalent QoS, in different geographic areas, and they must associate each service to a specific coverage zone. Therefore, when the end-user moves among coverage zones, a semantic handover is launched to guarantee seamless service continuity throughout end-user’s ambient contexts.

Because of losses in electricity conversion and storage only part of the energy taken from the power grid produces useful work in a battery-operated mobile device; the rest evaporates as heat. The... Show More

Because of losses in electricity conversion and storage only part of the energy taken from the power grid produces useful work in a battery-operated mobile device; the rest evaporates as heat. The authors analyze the recharging activity of a mobile phone to understand the efficiency of the different units involved (charger, EPM chipset, battery). Their measurements show that the efficiency is quite low; only about 15% of the electricity from the power grid ends up being used for the actual computing and communication elements of the mobile phone. It seems that there is room for improvement in the recharging efficiency. However, as the consumption of electricity of a single phone is small the incentive for improvements has been weak.

This paper presents the development of an extension of the SMS Service for Android Smartphones, which adds audio and visual characteristics to this widely used communication service. With this... Show More

This paper presents the development of an extension of the SMS Service for Android Smartphones, which adds audio and visual characteristics to this widely used communication service. With this solution, when a SMS message is received, it is read by a 3D avatar, who performs the lip articulatory movements and the emotional facial expressions synchronized with the audio corresponding to the content of the received message.