Mobile Content as a Service A Blueprint for a Vendor-Neutral Cloud of Mobile Devices

Mobile devices have become a commodity: we use several devices for various purposes. Although we carry only some of our devices with us, we still want to access content originating from any device. To overcome this issue, device users often upload content into a hosting service available in the cloud. However, cloud-based hosting can alienate the control and ownership of the content. A proposed architecture views development of a cloud computing service for mobile devices from a different angle. This approach maintains the content in the device where it was first created. The resulting design leads to a mobile device cloud that treats devices, together with the content and resources they host, as first-class cloud citizens. A proof-of-concept implementation is based on standard Web protocols. The underlying design can be configured for various contexts, such as individuals having several mobile devices, social communities interested in sharing content, or companies.