Welcome to the MUSIC project!

We believe that the project will be of particular interest for those involved in software development, in research, for people involved in mobile and ubiquitous computing as well as for people involved with or interested in new Open Source Software application or service development.

Geir Horn (SINTEF ICT, Norway) is the project co-ordinator of the MUSIC project and he would like to explain the significance of  project by telling you that “Software is becoming an even more important part of our ‘mobile’ lives. As we move around we are all confronted with the challenging task of keeping up to date and adapting to the changing environments where we may happen to try to maximize the utility provided by our software support systems. The MUSIC platform will make this easier for us all, enabling us to focus on the work as we move around.  MUSIC represents a major practical approach to ‘auto’ configuration of software systems. It represents an innovative way to handle unavoidable software system complexity. MUSIC will certainly impact our daily lives in the near future and it will enable us to stay productive while on the move.”

Now let's look at a typical day in the life of Ms. Müller ... ..

On her free day, Ms. Müller plans to spend some time shopping in the city centre before relaxing at home.  Over breakfast, she browses her music library with her PDA to select a list of songs to play that day.  In the train, she reads on-line newspapers and tabloids on the PDA so that she is informed of day's attractions, special offers and also to listen to some good music  On arrival to the city, the PDA connects to a pedestrian information portal that offers her location-based services.  Upon returning after a hard day's shopping in the city, Ms. Müller 's PDA re-establishes her well known home settings await the upcoming tasks.

This explanation of a day in the life of Ms. Müller's PDA, serves to demonstrate a range of services that will be readily available on small mobile devices.  These services have to run with limited resources, with network connections of unreliable quality and with changing user needs.  Software programs that realize these services are required to adapt themselves constantly and proactively, which makes their development complex and challenging.

The MUSIC project aims to relieve some of that burden from the shoulders of software and service developers.  It strives to address the paradigm of 'Any network - Any device' with relevant content and the right context in a secure and trustworthy manner.

The project will result in Middleware open platform technology, supplying architecture design tools and a framework to make it feasible to develop next generation mobile applications and services.

The MUSIC middleware can be applied for the development of adaptive applications for any type of target devices such as PCs, Laptops or mobile phones, which support at least Java 1.4. The target device can be from different manufacturers using any underlying operating system (Windows Mobile, Symbian, Linux/Palm, BlackBerry, Mac OS X), which provide a Virtual Machine (VM) for Java 1.3. The application is running in one VM with MUSIC and has therefore to obey the restrictions of the VM version.

Enjoy your visit on the MUSIC site!

Tom Flynn.
tom@sid2u.com

WP11 Leader.

www.sid2u.com