A hidden proxy for seamless & ABC multimedia mobile blogging

The availability of smart portable telephones, equipped with cameras and microphones, enables portable phone users to capture fragments of audio and video, taken directly from their daily lives. Thus, a new generation of mobile blogs, termed “moBlogs”, is emerging. Conceptually similar to textual Web logs, moBlogs collect text, images, audio and video, captured by mobile devices, and make them available on-line. In addition, the availability of different connectivity options on board the same portable phone (from Bluetooth, through 2.5/3G to WLAN) can improve the ability of the phone users to browse and update the moBlogs of interest to them. Within this scenario, in order to simplify the development of mobile applications for smart portable phones, and to enhance their reusability, it is necessary to provide those applications with appropriate communication support that shields them from the heterogeneities of the multiple connectivity options mentioned above. In this sense, the paper presents an applicationtransparent middleware designed and developed to provide mobile applications with end-to-end, Always Best Connected (ABC), and seamless connectivity, even in case of handoff events and network interface reconfigurations.