Framework for Distributed UI of Rich Mobile/Web Applications

In the post-desktop era, many devices have proliferated and have become undividable part of our digital life. Laptops, smartphones, tablet PCs are some of them. However, each device comes up with different input methods (multi-touch, mouse), sensors (accelerometer, compass) and display sizes. Moreover, they are mostly used for separate tasks, e.g. phones for calling, tablets for reading, and laptops for web browsing. Why the users shouldn’t take advantage of all their devices working as one logical device, i.e. serve to one application?

Within the UMIC and ROLE Projects, the objective of this thesis is to develop  and further implement a framework for rich internet applications with user interfaces that span over several devices with multimodality, i.e. laptops, smartphones, and tablet computers. The UI is based on Web widgets, running in widget containers such as iGoogle or OpenSocial. The underlying technology that glues the distributed UI parts is ROLE inter-widget communication based on the XMPP protocol, HTML5, and Web Sockets. This UI integration/enhancement facilitates users to carry out web and mobile activities (map navigation, video viewing, blogging and tagging) on different devices at the same time.  

The candidate should have a basic knowledge and interest in web and mobile (Android) development. The candidate should also have interest in working with next-generation web technologies such as HTML5, Web Sockets, and XMPP.