💻 Fabricio Buzeto

Blurring the boundaries between the game world and the real world is the purpose of ubigames. This entices a higher level of engagement and immersion among players, an effect of great interest by the electronic game industry. Game engines have been employed by this industry to overcome several challenges and are a well established solution. However, ubigames still lack a solution that handles both the challenges of game development and those faced by ubiquitous computing applications. Here is… Mostrar más

Blurring the boundaries between the game world and the real world is the purpose of ubigames. This entices a higher level of engagement and immersion among players, an effect of great interest by the electronic game industry. Game engines have been employed by this industry to overcome several challenges and are a well established solution. However, ubigames still lack a solution that handles both the challenges of game development and those faced by ubiquitous computing applications. Here is presented a game engine that helps building such games, providing transparent dynamic integration of heterogeneous devices and technologies for game developers. Mostrar menos

Game engines are an integral part of game development, greatly
easing the overall effort. Even though, ubigames still lack the availability
of such advanced tools as those found for other platforms
like consoles and mobile phones. In order to fill this gap, we have
developed a Unity 3D plugin for building games compatible with
the uOS ubiquitous middleware. The results of this implementation
are evidentiated through two use case games, showing its compliance
and stability.

The purpose of ubiquitous computing lies on making computation invisible to s eyes. Ubiquitous games, on the other hand, try to embed electronic gaming experience into s lives, blending virtual and real components into the play. This type of games represents a challenge for game designers since they need to know which computing resources can be used to create the metaphors that will lead to new experiences. Reconfigurable games are a subset of such games. Their novelty resides in… Mostrar más

The purpose of ubiquitous computing lies on making computation invisible to s eyes. Ubiquitous games, on the other hand, try to embed electronic gaming experience into s lives, blending virtual and real components into the play. This type of games represents a challenge for game designers since they need to know which computing resources can be used to create the metaphors that will lead to new experiences. Reconfigurable games are a subset of such games. Their novelty resides in creating games that self-adapt to changes in the real world, creating an ever changing gaming experience. This paper discusses the concept of reconfigurable games. More specifically, we identify the main characteristics of such games and discuss some of the challenges in their development, focusing on the diversity of interaction capabilities available. Mostrar menos

Smart applications rely on middleware abstraction to interact with the environment in order to collect relevant information for context determination. Among the forms of representing context in smart spaces, ontologies have been used because of the possibility of sharing, reusing and also modelling the semantics of context, independent of programming language, operational system and/or middleware used. This work presents an ontology-based model to applications in a ubiquitous… Mostrar más

Smart applications rely on middleware abstraction to interact with the environment in order to collect relevant information for context determination. Among the forms of representing context in smart spaces, ontologies have been used because of the possibility of sharing, reusing and also modelling the semantics of context, independent of programming language, operational system and/or middleware used. This work presents an ontology-based model to applications in a ubiquitous environment. The proposed model was implemented and integrated into the uOS middleware, which has focus on service adaptability in smart spaces. Mostrar menos

Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) relies on the computation distributed over the environment to simplify the tasks performed by its s. A smart space is an instance of a ubiquitous environment, composed of a dynamic and heterogeneous set of devices that interact to the execution of distributed smart applications. In this context, mobile devices provide new resources when they the environment, which disappear when they leave it. This introduces the challenge of self-adaptation, in… Mostrar más

Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) relies on the computation distributed over the environment to simplify the tasks performed by its s. A smart space is an instance of a ubiquitous environment, composed of a dynamic and heterogeneous set of devices that interact to the execution of distributed smart applications. In this context, mobile devices provide new resources when they the environment, which disappear when they leave it. This introduces the challenge of self-adaptation, in which smart applications may either include new resources as they become available or replace them when they become unavailable. Ubiquitous games combine ubicomp and computer game technologies to enrich 's experience and fun. Such games may benefit from different input and output resources offered by mobile devices. To the development and deployment of ubiquitous games, this work presents the uOS middleware. Using a DSOA (Device Service Oriented Architecture) based architecture and lightweight service discovery protocols, uOS ensures compatibility among resources, providing resource rerouting between heterogeneous and limited software and hardware platforms. The uMoleHunt game is presented to illustrate the practical application of uOS. Mostrar menos

Computing devices are increasingly being incorporated into the physical environment that surrounds us, with smaller, cheaper, more reliable and lower power consumption appliances being manufactured. Presently, there is a profusion of mobile devices with multiple resources such as cameras, screens, keyboards, speakers, recorders and many others. These resources are commonly replicated in the environment, making the task of allocating them in a seamless and shared way a challenge to the s. In… Mostrar más

Computing devices are increasingly being incorporated into the physical environment that surrounds us, with smaller, cheaper, more reliable and lower power consumption appliances being manufactured. Presently, there is a profusion of mobile devices with multiple resources such as cameras, screens, keyboards, speakers, recorders and many others. These resources are commonly replicated in the environment, making the task of allocating them in a seamless and shared way a challenge to the s. In this scenario, this work presents the modeling and implementation of Hydra, an application that recognizes the available resources and dynamically reroutes them, according to the s necessities. It runs on the uOS middleware, developed focusing on service adaptability in smart spaces. Thus, Hydra application integrates resources in the environment in order to provide the most adequate services to s. Mostrar menos

Games are a kind of application that stimulate the absorption of new
technologies and forms of interaction by the . During game
sessions, players tend to be more receptive to changes, diminishing
the strangeness of some innovative technologies. On the other
hand, ubicomp started as a vision of a world where the computer
vanishes in the environment, helping and interacting with s in
a unnoticeable way. The combination of games and ubicomp is
relatively new. The ludic… Mostrar más

Games are a kind of application that stimulate the absorption of new
technologies and forms of interaction by the . During game
sessions, players tend to be more receptive to changes, diminishing
the strangeness of some innovative technologies. On the other
hand, ubicomp started as a vision of a world where the computer
vanishes in the environment, helping and interacting with s in
a unnoticeable way. The combination of games and ubicomp is
relatively new. The ludic and engaging aspects of games can be
used to investigate ubicomp technologies on one side and, on the
other, it is highly probable that ubiquitous games will play an important
role in game market in the future. This article presents a
study of ubiquitous games developed over the last decade. By analyzing
them, it is possible to extract some common characteristics
for comparison purposes. Therefore, this work search to highlights
traits considered relevant for game design, providing guidelines for
future research of ubigames Mostrar menos

The use of mobile devices in a cooperative way is a growing trend, especially in ubiquitous environments. It has created a challenge in of how best to connect these devices with greater efficiency. The use of distributed service-oriented architectures (like DSOA - Device Service Oriented Architecture), which takes into mobile devices restrictions, is shown as a natural candidate solution. In this article, we present the uP, a lightweight set of protocols designed to efficiently… Mostrar más

The use of mobile devices in a cooperative way is a growing trend, especially in ubiquitous environments. It has created a challenge in of how best to connect these devices with greater efficiency. The use of distributed service-oriented architectures (like DSOA - Device Service Oriented Architecture), which takes into mobile devices restrictions, is shown as a natural candidate solution. In this article, we present the uP, a lightweight set of protocols designed to efficiently facilitate communication in a DSOA configuration. Empirical experiments indicate that this approach provides good results, allowing low consumption of energy in mobile devices within a DSOA environment. Mostrar menos

Ubiquitous environments are composed by a wide variety of devices, each one with different characteristics like communication protocol, programming and hardware platforms. These devices range from powerful equipment, like PCs, to limited ones, like cell phones, sensors, and actuators. The services provided by a ubiquitous environment rely on the interaction among devices. In order to the development of applications in this context, the heterogeneity of communication protocols must be… Mostrar más

Ubiquitous environments are composed by a wide variety of devices, each one with different characteristics like communication protocol, programming and hardware platforms. These devices range from powerful equipment, like PCs, to limited ones, like cell phones, sensors, and actuators. The services provided by a ubiquitous environment rely on the interaction among devices. In order to the development of applications in this context, the heterogeneity of communication protocols must be abstracted and the functionalities dynamically provided by devices should be easily available to application developers. This paper proposes a Device Service Oriented Architecture (DSOA) as an abstraction layer to help organize devices and its resources in a ubiquitous environment, while hiding details about communication protocols from developers. Based on DSOA, a lightweight middleware (uOS) and a high level protocol (uP) were developed. A use case is presented to illustrate the application of these concepts. Mostrar menos