Cloud-assisted mobile computing and pervasive services [Guest Editorial]

In order to provide rich mobile pervasive services to end users, advancing mobile communication technologies and deployment of smart devices have become key issues in both industry and academia. However, the limited onboard computing, energy supply, and storage capabilities of mobile devices are hampering their ability to support the increasingly sophisticated applications demanded by users. Recently, mobile cloud computing (MCC) technologies for mobile devices have emerged to overcome these limitations. These technologies can minimize the requirements of computing power and storage to deploy pervasive applications in mobile devices. Developments of innovative and pervasive mobile services (mobile video streaming, rich media dissemination, surveillance, e-gaming, healthcare, etc.) can be greatly facilitated by cloud computing platforms employing advanced technologies.