Applying CORBA technology to ad-hoc network services with mobile terminals

The latest mobile terminals have rich and high performance peripherals like USB, IrDA, and Bluetooth. The mobile terminal and external devices are connected to form an ad-hoc network with a wired or wireless network locally, and to realize services with the external devices. The WAP Forum defines the specification of External Functionality Interface (EFI) framework specifications. The EFI provides a uniform access interface to external devices and enables access from all applications described by a markup language and a script language in the mobile terminal to the external devices. This paper shows that actual correspondence between EFI and CORBA, and architecture to implement CORBA-based EFI framework, specifications. The EFI does not define an interface for software components to provide services from the external devices. This paper also shows that the interface for software components can be systematically derived based on the architecture.