e-MATE: An open architecture to support mobility of users

As the world gets connected, people need to access information anywhere, anytime, whatever the device is (laptop, cellular phone...). They look for situated services that identify and package relevant context-sensitive information. Situated services for mobile people must integrate 1) user profile: who the user is; 2) space: where the user is; 3) time: when the user needs the service 4) context: of which services the user is surrounded by. A situated service is multi-modal, geo-referenced and personalized. A multi-modal service is available through very different devices. A geo-referenced service selects information according to the physical position of the user. A personalized service chooses only relevant information. This paper presents the main elements of an architecture that fosters the design, implementation and deployment of situated services. These elements can be organized into three processes: personalization, deployment and access to a service. Personalization is the process that chooses the right information and presents it at the right time with the appropriate user interface. The deployment of services is supported through application servers that supports from fat-client to thin client distributed schemas. The access to service is done through portals that enables to get the client part of the service, a service viewer then uses an object renderer to generate on the fly the user interface according to the device profile, the service features and layout information.