\mu-ware: A Middleware Framework for Wearable Computer and Ubiquitous Computing Environment

Abstract

We expect that futuristic wearable computers including our UFC (ubiquitous fashionable computer) will spread like current prosperous PC in the near future. With the wearable computer on their body, users utilize their own private computing environment wherever they are. Moreover, using the wearable computer, they are able to interact with a variety of user-centric services provided by ubiquitous computing infrastructure (U-infra). In this paper, we focus on our proposed extensible middleware, U-ware, for both user's UFC and U-infra which is managed by ubiquitous service providers, mu-ware is composed of light-weight service discovery protocol (USD protocol), distributed information sharing (Ubispace), context manager and instant service loader on our extensible middleware platform, called KUSP. mu-ware not only provides upper applications with an efficient stand-alone computing environment but also helps them easily take advantage of various ubiquitous services, even new services in a first-visited place