Context-awareness in mobile web services

Abstract

Context-aware computing is a computing paradigm in which applications can take advantage of contextual information. Quality of network connection is a very important factor for mobile web services. However, the conditions of mobile networks may change frequently and dynamically. Thus, providing support for context-aware applications is especially important in mobile web services. Recently, a number of architectures supporting context-aware applications have been developed, but little attention is paid to the special requirements of mobile devices which particularly have many constraints. This paper discusses a client-proxy-server architecture that supports context-awareness by considering types of device, network and application characteristics. The contribution of this paper mainly lies in the division of labor between proxy and server. Application specific proxy is used to tailor the original resource based on the mobile user's context information. To prove the feasibility, a context-aware image management system is designed and realized. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.