MobiShare: Sharing Context-Dependent Data and Services from Mobile Sources

♣ This research is partially supported by EU IST project DBGlobe (IST2001-32645) under the FET Proactive Initiative on Global Computing for the co-operation of autonomous and mobile entities in dynamic environments. ∗Currently on leave from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Abstract The rapid advances in wireless communications technology and mobile computing have enabled personal mobile devices that we use in everyday life to become information and services providers by complementing or substituting fixed-location hosts. The MobiShare architecture outlined in this paper provides the infrastructure for ubiquitous mobile access and mechanisms for publishing, discovering and accessing heterogeneous mobile resources in a large area, taking into account the context of both sources and requestors. Any wireless communication protocol could be used between the device and the system. The use of XMLrelated languages and protocols for describing and exchanging metadata gives the system a uniform and easily adaptable interface, allowing a variety of devices to use it. The overall approach is data-centric and service-oriented, implying that all the devices are treated as producers or requestors of data wrapped as information services.