u-Snap: A Framework for Describing Snapshot-Based Ubiquitous Applications

Takeshi IWAMOTO
Kazunori TAKASHIO
Hideyuki TOKUDA

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications   Vol.E88-B    No.3    pp.932-942
Publication Date: 2005/03/01
Online ISSN: 
DOI: 10.1093/ietcom/e88-b.3.932
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Section on Ubiquitous Networks)
Category: Software Platform Technologies
Keyword: 
ubiquitous application,  context aware application,  application framework,  

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Summary: 
In ubiquitous computing, or ubiquitous network environment, many sensors and devices are embedded in the environment. Moreover, information appliances and smart space technologies allow users to enjoy high computational power, which also gives freedom and extrication from traditional computing style that often caused users' inconvenience and restriction of their demands and needs. However, due to the characteristics of ubiquitous computing, application's high adaptability to the changes of environments is required. To achieve this high adaptability of applications, we introduce a design approach of "snapshot-based application." The snapshot-based application can store its status as a snapshot. By utilizing the snapshot, an application can be recreated as it is in the status of the snapshot. In this paper, we propose an application framework named "u-Snap," which realizes snapshot-based applications. We have exemplified the effectiveness of this framework with implementation of "u-Photo," which utilize a snapshot of an application as contextual information that is embedded in a photo image.