Mobile Web applications

This document presents the work that was elaborated at the company Present Technologies as part of the academic discipline Internship/Industrial Project for the Master’s degree in Informatics and Systems, Software Development branch, at Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra. The area of the mobile web applications has grown exponentially over the last few years turning it into a very dynamic field where new development platforms and frameworks are constantly emerging. Thus, the internship consisted in the study of two new mobile operating systems, Tizen and Firefox OS, as well as two frameworks for packaging of mobile web applications – Adobe PhoneGap and Appcelerator Titanium. These platforms are in the direct interest of Present Technology since it pretends to use them in its future projects in general and in the Phune Gaming project in particular. Since Television is one of the Present Technologies’ business areas, during the course of the internship it was decided to perform additionally a study of two Smart TV platforms, namely Samsung Smart TV and Opera TV, which was considered as a valuable knowledge for the company. For each of the platforms was performed a study about its architecture, supported standards and the development tools that are provided, nevertheless the focus was on the applications and for this reason a practical case study was conducted. The case studies consisted in the creation of a prototype or packaging of an application, for the case of the packaging tools, in order to prove the feasibility of the applications for the Present Technologies’ needs. The outcome of the work performed during the internship is that it raised the awareness of Present Technology of the studied platforms, providing it with prototypes and written documentation for the platforms’ successful usage in future projects

Fine-Grained Access Control for HTML5-Based Mobile Applications in Android

HTML5-based mobile applications are becoming more and more popular because they can run on different platforms. Several newly introduced mobile OS natively support HTML5-based applications. For those that do not provide native sup-port, such as Android, iOS, and Windows Phone, developers can develop HTML5-based applications using middlewares, such as PhoneGap [17]. In these platforms, programs are loaded into a web component, called WebView, which can render HTML5 pages and execute JavaScript code. In order for the program to access the system resources, which are isolated from the content inside WebView due to its sand-box, bridges need to be built between JavaScript and the native code (e.g. Java code in Android). Unfortunately, such bridges break the existing protection that was origi-nally built into WebView. In this paper, we study the potential risks of HTML5-based applications, and investigate how the existing mobile systems ’ access control supports these applications. We fo-cus on Android and the PhoneGap middleware. However, our ideas can be applied to other platforms. Our studies indicate that Android does not provide an adequate access control for this kind of applications. We propose a fine-grained access control mechanism for the bridge in Android system. We have implemented our scheme in Android and have evaluated its effectiveness and performance. 1

Mobile Web applications

This document presents the work that was elaborated at the company Present Technologies as part of the academic discipline Internship/Industrial Project for the Master’s degree in Informatics and Systems, Software Development branch, at Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra. The area of the mobile web applications has grown exponentially over the last few years turning it into a very dynamic field where new development platforms and frameworks are constantly emerging. Thus, the internship consisted in the study of two new mobile operating systems, Tizen and Firefox OS, as well as two frameworks for packaging of mobile web applications – Adobe PhoneGap and Appcelerator Titanium. These platforms are in the direct interest of Present Technology since it pretends to use them in its future projects in general and in the Phune Gaming project in particular. Since Television is one of the Present Technologies’ business areas, during the course of the internship it was decided to perform additionally a study of two Smart TV platforms, namely Samsung Smart TV and Opera TV, which was considered as a valuable knowledge for the company. For each of the platforms was performed a study about its architecture, supported standards and the development tools that are provided, nevertheless the focus was on the applications and for this reason a practical case study was conducted. The case studies consisted in the creation of a prototype or packaging of an application, for the case of the packaging tools, in order to prove the feasibility of the applications for the Present Technologies’ needs. The outcome of the work performed during the internship is that it raised the awareness of Present Technology of the studied platforms, providing it with prototypes and written documentation for the platforms’ successful usage in future projects

Firefox OS Overview

Firefox OS is an operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. It is developed by Mozilla but it aims to be free from any proprietary technology. It lets users run applications developed entirely using web technologies, like HTML5, JavaScript, CSS. It is not directly competing with iOS. It has some common target markets with Android. For now Firefox OS targets specific type of clients - people that don't have smartphones yet. Available devices are low-end and as a result prices of Firefox OS phones are low. Firefox OS is aimed to be free from a proprietary technology so, as an effect, flexible and open. There should be no more device or vendor fragmentation. All apps are supposed to be built once and run everywhere. It is possible thanks to Web Apps and Web APIs. Mozilla makes a big effort in order to standardize Web APIs, so that the device hardware could be accessed more easily. Mozilla also introduced its sign-in system for the Web. Mozilla Persona allows sign-in by using any of user's existing email addresses. Persona implements a BrowserID protocol that is a universal login system that does not require email providers to support it. Furthermore, the identity provider cannot track user's activity thanks to a certification system. Implementing persona requires very little code so it can be quickly deployed. At this point the biggest issue that Mozilla is facing is the lack of websites using their system. Mozilla also wants to redefine the way payments work for mobile applications. Firefox OS allows two types of paid content: paid applications and in-app payments. There are three important parts in the payment process: Payment Provider, Client App and App Server. They communicate with each other and use a payment token to provide all necessary information concerning the product being purchased. Mozpay,the principal part of the payment flow, was introduced in the first version of Firefox OS. Recently mozpay was proposed to be depreciated, because it made the payment process to rigid for certain payment providers. There are several solutions like PayPal, Google Wallet or Stripe that can be easily added to the web content by injecting JavaScript into web pages. The new solution is to securely expose Payment Provider primitives that websites can use to implement mobile payments. The subject is still under discussion. Firefox OS is still in the early phase. Different features and functionalities keep changing. The existing applications are not all working smoothly yet but the marketplace keeps growing. So far Firefox OS was launched in several countries like Spain and Poland. There are other carriers that will start selling it in other countries sometime soon. The opinions about Firefox OS are divided. So far all sold devices are low-end so they are targeting a certain type of clients, users that are not very emanding. As a result it is difficult to clearly evaluate this system or to compare it to existing technologies. The future of Firefox OS is still unsure. Although thanks to growing interest in Web Apps and Web APIs and cooperating with other companies and mobile carrier the system may become successful

Sensors on mobile devices for AAL

Com o envelhecimento da população, as preocupações com a garantia do seu bem-estar aumentam criando a necessidade de desenvolver ferramentas que permitam monitorizar em permanência este sector da população. A utilização de smartphones pelos mais velhos pode ser crucial no seu bem-estar e na sua autonomia contribuindo para a recolha de informação importante já que estes estão muitas vezes equipados com sensores que podem dar indicações preciosas ao cuidador sobre o estado atual do paciente. Os sensores podem fornecer dados sobre a atividade física do paciente, bem como detetar quedas ou calcular a sua posição, com a ajuda do acelerómetro, do giroscópio e do sensor de campo magnético. No entanto, funcionalidades como essas requerem, obrigatoriamente, uma frequência de amostragem mínima por parte dos sensores que permita a implementação de algoritmos, que determinarão esses parâmetros da forma mais exata possível. Dado que nem sempre os pacientes se fazem acompanhar do seu smartphone quando estão na sua residência, a criação de ambientes de AAL (Ambient Assisted Living) com recurso a dispositivos externos que podem ser “vestidos” pelos pacientes pode também ser uma solução adequada. Estes contêm normalmente os mesmos sensores que os smartphones e comunicam com estes através de tecnologias sem fios, como é o caso do Bluetooth Low Energy. Neste trabalho, avaliou-se a possibilidade de alteração da frequência dos sensores em diferentes sistemas operativos, tendo sido efectuadas modificações nas instalações por defeito de alguns sistemas operativos abertos. Com o objectivo de permitir a criação de uma solução de AAL com recurso a um dispositivo externo implementaram-se serviços e perfis num dispositivo externo, o SensorTag.With the ageing of the population and the concerns about the people’s well-being increasing, new tools need to be developed in order to allow the permanent monitoring of this demographic group. The use of smartphones by elders can be crucial in their well-being and autonomy since they are a lot of times equipped with sensors that can provide caregivers with precious indications about the caretaker current status. Sensors can provide data about the patient’s physical activity, as well as detecting falls or calculate its position, with the help of the accelerometer, the gyroscope or the magnetic field sensor. But functionalities as these require, mandatorily, a minimum sampling frequency from the sensors that will allow the implementation of algorithms that will determine those parameters in the most exact way possible. Having in mind that the caretakers often are not accompanied by their smartphone when they are at their home places, the creation of AAL environments with the help of some other external devices that can be “worn” by the patients might also become an adequate solution. These devices normally contain the same sensors as the smartphones and communicate with them through wireless technologies, like Bluetooth Low Energy. This work evaluates the possibility of sensor frequency modification in several Operating Systems, and some modifications in the source code of some open source systems were performed. With the objective of allowing the creation of an AAL solution using an external device, profiles and services were implemented on an external device, the SensorTa

Development of a security framework for HTML5-based mobile agents

Mobile agent technology is a paradigm where a program can move autonomously in the different executable environment of a network. The program is the mobile agent, that can move its code, suspend and resume the execution in the new environment.The use of a mobile agent provides numerous benefits over the traditional paradigm like client-server. It reduces the network traffic, connection time and bandwidth consumption by the moving agent between the client and server. However, the security issue of the mobile agent makes difficult to acquire the benefits. The HTML5-based mobile agent framework was developed in Tampere University of Technology (TUT). The core of this thesis is to secure the mobile agent framework. The security threats to the mobile agent and agent platform are classified to design and implement a secure framework. These threats are the agent attacking platform, platform attacking agent, agent attacking agent and agent system attacked by external entities. This thesis focuses first two threats and provides a solution to protect mobile agent framework against them. The solution uses a signing method that involves salting and hashing of source address to generate signature. Furthermore, the RSA encryption using the static private key of an agent origin server to create a signature. The signature moves along with the agent and it is used to verify the agent source address using a static public key. This verification ensures that particular agent comes from the legitimate source and it is trusted as a non-malicious in the current platform. This solution overcomes the security issues like unauthorized access to the data, changing the agent and platform code, the misuse of others identity, eavesdropping and altering the important information, the excessive use of the resources etc. Also, the implementation helps to minimize the problems in agent mobility, agent and platform communication and identification of agents

Mobiiliohjelmointi ja käyttöliittymäsuunnittelu

Tässä opinnäytetyössä selitetään mobiililaitteiden- ja mobiilikäyttöjärjestelmien nykytilannetta ja tulevaisuutta, mobiiliohjelmoinnin tekniikoita, käyttöliittymäsuunnittelun- ja toteutuksen eri vaiheita sovelluskehittäjän näkökulmasta. Työn painopisteenä oli tutkia mobiililaitteiden käyttöliittymien merkitystä. Tutkimuksessa käytettiin kvalitatiivista ja konstruktiivista tutkimusmenetelmää. Tutkimuksessa toteutettiin kysely, joka oli pohjana esimerkkikäyttöliittymän suunnittelussa. Suunnitteluvaiheessa dokumentointiin käytettiin kuvakaappauksia ja esimerkkikohtia sovelluksen lähdekoodista. Toteutusvaiheessa käytettiin avoimia lähdekoodin ohjelmistoja, kuten Eclipseä ja Gimp-ohjelmistoa. Työvälineinä PC-tietokoneessa olivat Microsoft Office-paketti ja testauslaitteistoina Samsung Galaxy S3 ja Galaxy 3 Android-puhelimet. Tutkimuksen tuloksena syntyi esimerkkisovellus- ja käyttöliittymä sovelluskehitystyön eri vaiheiden kautta. Kyselytutkimuksen tuloksena saatiin tietoa käyttäjien mielipiteistä käyttöliittymiä kohtaan ja mitä eri asioita käyttäjät käyttöliittymissä arvostavat. Tutkimukseni tulosten perusteella sovelluskehityksessä käyttöliittymällä on suuri merkitys ja suositeltavaa on tehdä käyttöliittymäprojekti asiakaslähtöisesti.The objective of the thesis is to explain mobile devices and operating systems current situation and the future, mobile programming techniques, user interface designing and implementation of the various stages from the application developer's view. The emphasis was to research the role of user interfaces for touch- screen mobile device users. The research used both qualitative and constructive research methods. The research conducted a survey, which was the basis for an example of user interface design. The planning documents are made by using screenshots and example source code of the application points. During the implementation phase was used to open-source soft-ware such as Eclipse and Gimp. Tools on PC was Microsoft Office-package and test equipment Samsung Galaxy S3 and Galaxy 3-Android phones. The result of the research was example application and the user interface develop-ment through different phases. Survey results provided insight into the opinions of the users and the different things what users will appreciate in the user interfaces. The research results of application development, user interface is great importance, and it is recommended to make project a customer-oriented

Linux based mobile: operating systems

Trabalho de Projeto para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática e de ComputadoresNos últimos quinze anos a industria móvel evolui de um Nokia 3310 que conseguia guardar vinte e quatro registos de chamadas para um iPhone que literalmenteconsegue salvaguardar uma vida inteira de chamadas. A industria móvel cresceu edescartou na maioria os sistema operativos proprietários, convergindo os seus esforços numa selecção de sistemas como Android, iOS e Windows Phone. Os sistemas operativos móveis estão em todo o lado, nos nossos telefones, relógiosou carros. Estes reestruturaram completamente a sociedade oferecendo a possibilidade de contactar qualquer pessoa no mundo inteiro a qualquer hora. Hoje emdia praticamente não conseguimos viver sem os nossos dispositivos móveis porqueos utilizamos para trabalhar, socializar, estudar e consumir informação. Apesar de serem os sistemas mais utilizados no mundo, os mecanismos internos,como é que eles executam, ou como trabalhar com eles continua a ser sujeito a taboo, devido à sua complexidade. Este projecto apresenta como é que um sistema operativo móvel moderno está organizado, como o compilar e como os executar num sistema embebido. Para o fazer foinecessário realizar um estudo para entender o kernel Linux, como é que este corree o que contém. Os sistemas Android e Tizen foram estudados e compreendidos deforma a entender o seu processo de compilação e execução. Finalmente, o projecto também descreve como executar num mesmo dispositivovários sistemas operativos e como os controlar. A prova de conceito foi realizadanuma placa de prototipagem ARM, usando um processador com a tecnologia maisrecente.Abstract: In the last fifteen years the mobile industry evolved from the Nokia 3310 that couldstore a hopping twenty-four phone records to an iPhone that literately can savea lifetime phone history. The mobile industry grew and thrown way most of theproprietary operating systems to converge their efforts in a selected few, such asAndroid, iOS and Windows Phone. Mobile operating systems are everywhere: on our phones, watches or cars. Theycompletely reshaped the worldwide society by having instant contact with virtuallyeveryone everywhere. Nowadays we almost can’t live without our mobile devicesbecause we use them to work, socialize, study and consume information. Although being the most used operating systems on the planet, the internal mechanisms, how they run and how towork them is still subject of taboo, mainly becausethe complexity that these systems have. This project presents how a modern mobile operating system is organized, howto build it and how to deploy into an embedded device. To accomplish that, thenecessary study was made to understand the Linux kernel, how it runs and what itcontains. The full fledged operating systems Android and Tizen were dismemberedto their core and analysed/studied on how to build and deploy them. Finally, the project also describes how to deploy on a single device, multiple operating systems and how can onemanage them. The proof of concept was built underan ARM board using the latest processor technology

Performance Benchmark for Smart TV Platforms, Set-Top Boxes and Game Consoles

Cílem této práce je vytvořit nástroj pro vývoj aplikací  na určité minoritní platformy, primárně Smart TV a HbbTV. Ty jsou implementovány v klienském JavaScriptu. Cílovou skupinou jsou tedy vývojáři takových aplikací, nikoli koncoví uživatelé. Zmíněný nástroj bude mít za cíl zjednodušit a urychlit vývojové procesy, hlavně ladění výkonu aplikací.The purpose of this thesis is to create a tool for development of applications for certain minority platforms, primarily Smart TV and HbbTV. Those are implemented in a client-side JavaScript. Target group are hence the JavaScript developers, not the end-users. Said tool will target simplification and speed-up of development processes, mainly applications' performance tuning.

New Challenges on Crossplatform Digital Contents

When we speak about devices and platforms, generally we think about those of general use which are currently available (mainly smartphones and tablets). Surely, we would forget all those which are on the way (watches, glasses, cars) and those which are coming. The Internet of Things will transform the technological world in which we are into an amalgamation of devices and interfaces. This paper analyses the challenge for the coming years of getting all these new devices to communicate between them, regardless of their technology and the platforms they use, and it is based on the works done under the Visio Project, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism. Finally, a truly universal platform to avoid market fragmentation and provide access to information and services is proposed