The Unit of Device Independence and Mobility of the R&D Department at Fundación CTIC (Centro Tecnológico) is preparing a distributed Device Description Repository and is asking for external collaboration.

Device Description Repository (DDR)

A DDR is a database that stores devices’ information concerning their hardware and software features. A DDR can retrieve various information, such as: the device vendor, the operating system version, the web browser installed, available sensors (e.g. compass, accelerometers, camera, microphone), the CPU model, primary and secondary memories that are installed, the available storage, the screen dimensions, the screen resolution in pixels, the Bluetooth version, audio and video codecs that are supported, and so on. Most of the information can be known beforehand, because DDRs keep the static information which does not change over time.

In order to help developing CTIC’s DDR, please access this URL, in which you will find further information about this work and the instructions to collaborate with it too.

ComScore has published in the last December the report “Top 10 need-to-knows” about social networking activities, providing an overview about how social applications are used nowadays in different countries around the world. Below, you will find reported some information related to context-aware adaptation that were originally provided by the report.

Social networks can be defined as online platforms where users connect themselves, share information and build relationships with other online users. Social networks are popular among Internet users, being adopted by 82% of the online users. This popularity has been significantly changing  consumer behaviors, and also life in communities and societies.

Despite differences in government, infrastructure, Internet access, and cultural practices around the world, social networking grows in every country. As such its usage behavior reflects regional differences, for instance, concerning the time spent online, while Latin Americans spent an average of 7.6 hours per user in October 2011, Asians spent less than 3 hours. Concerning the gender, consistently across all regions, women spend more time than men. In North America and Europe, women spend 30% more time than men on social networking sites a month (approximately 2 hours).

• Facebook leads the social networking in the majority of the countries, but exceptions include Japan, Brazil, China, and Russia. Among the top five global networks, Twitter and Linkedin present the highest growth rates for audience size over the past year.
• Microblogging is also a popular social activity, Twitter for instance, is mainly  used to communicate events of worldwide and national significance, ranging from the political uprisings in the Middle East to natural disasters as the tsunami in Japan.
• Social networking penetrates mainly among young demographic groups (also called “digital natives”), however users older than 55 represent the fastest growing segment in social networking usage.

Mobile devices represent the future of social networking as they provide means for users to connect on-the-go, facilitating real-time interaction. However, the mobile audience for social networking is still a fraction of users who access them via a classic web interface trough a fixed-line Internet connection.

Across five leading European markets (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom), nearly a quarter (24%) of the total mobile population reported access their social networks on their mobile devices. UK shows the highest social networking penetration among mobile users with 35%. The growth in mobile social networking use can be attributed largely to the growth in popularity of smartphones, specially considering the apps that were developed aiming to provide a better user experience.

The original publication is based in a research with 2 Million people from 171 countries. It can be accessed online at http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Presentations_Whitepapers/2011/it_is_a_social_world_top_10_need-to-knows_about_social_networking

BlueStacks recently published an infographic illustrating the main characteristics of the typical user profile of Android. Although the results cannot be considered as scientific, they provide interesting insights to contextualize the average user of Android.

Concerning the triple User, Platform, Environment, typically applied to define context information, from this infographic, some of the main characteristics of an Android user can be highlighted:

• User: 37% reported to wear glasses; 62% reported to use Android to play, and 38% to work; 13% reported to have more than 50 applications on their phone, 33% have only free applications on their phone
• Platform: 9% reported to own an Android tablet, but not an Android phone
• Environment: 36% reported to be Americans, 28% Asians and 27% Europeans

The average monthly data usage of an Android user is 582 Mb. Furthermore, the graphic also reports more specific information about the users, such as clothing style, and biometric data.

The infographic, generated by BlueStacks, was originally published at: http://bluestacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/mr-android-big-new.jpg in December 2011. The data used were obtained as a courtesy of Nielsen research in collaboration with Facebook users that are fans of BlueStacks App Player for PC.

The fifth edition of the MDDay will take place in Paris on 24th of November.

The MDDay, or La journée du Model driven, is an event dedicated to Model Driven approaches. Experts in this domain, such as practitioners, researchers, clients, users and developers, will present related concepts (MDA, UML, SOA), exchange experiences, discuss model driven solutions,  and provide some future perspectives.

The goals of the MDDay are to present cases of application of model driven approaches, evaluate these approaches in the context of complex projects, identify the advantages in short, medium and long term, etc.

The topics of discussion include, but are not limited to:

• Agile development
• MD approaches and users
• Performance of applications
• Quality of code
• Benefits of model-driven approaches

The MDDay is organized by 11 companies, and the Serenoa Project wil be represented there by W4 and UCL.

Further information can be accessed in: http://www.mdday.fr/index.html

Vision Mobile has just published a technical report entitled  ”Mobile Platforms: The Clash of Ecosystems”. In this report the most important mobile platforms are presented and trending topics, ranging from technical to marketing domains, are discussed.

Here we will briefly highlight some of interesting points of the report, however the complete document is freely available online.

• Smartphones represent a growing proportion of device sales in global markets. Although there is a wide variation: smartphones shipment penetration varies from nearly 65% in USA and over 50% in Europe to 17% in Latin America and 18% in Africa / Middle East, smartphones are taking a growing proportion of device sales in more cost-sensitive markets all over the world.
• App stores (e.g. Apple App Store and Google Android Market) control ecosystems and not profit from content: app stores have become the main distribution channel between developers and consumers in recent years. App stores are not only able to reach more consumers, but also to accelerate the applications delivery and payment.
• HTML5 has potential to work as a cross-platform technology for smartphones: HTML5 along with the recently launched CSS3 and more efficient JavaScript engines, has the potential to greatly increase the functionality of web applications requiring fewer lines of code
• App innovations chosen by users pushes mobile operators around value-added services, core messaging, and voice services: more and more people are able to start to write mobile applications, and communication applications pushes telecom services
• Consistency is key for the success of an application platform: applications must run on all implementations of the platform. A software platform, in contrast, needs flexibility, allowing it to fit the requirements of a wide range of product variants and reach supply-side economies of scale
• The user interfaces and applications, and not the hardware features, are driving the handset sales
• Application platforms (e.g. iOS and Android) are able to attract huge financial investments of developers, investors and brands

The smartphone OS market leadership is currently divided between Apple iOS and Google Android. iOS and Android triumph not only because of technological sophistication, but also because of the strength of their application ecosystems. They exemplify successful application platforms because they were carefully designed to connect both: users and developers. Apple is pointed as the staple for smartphone device specifications, user experience, ecosystem, browser capabilities and content. Android, on the other hand, comes from a company experienced in connecting online users and advertisers.

“For end-users, the new applications add value to the platform. And for developers, the platform gains value with each and every new end-user.”