Computational Framework to Support Development of Applications Running on Multiple Co-located Devices

Abstract

We designed a framework to generalize the development of applications with UI elements distributed across co-located devices. The framework is comprised of diverse components in order to deal with the complexity of such a task, including: authentication and authorization services; a broker to sync information across multiple application instances; background services that gather the capabilities of the devices; an indoor positioning system to determine when devices are close to each other; and a library which helps integrating Web applications with the broker, determining which components to show based on UI requirements and device capabilities, and custom elements to manage the distribution of the UI components and the multiple UI application states. Collaboration is supported by sharing UI states with other users.