Mobile Computing in Digital Ecosystems: Design Issues and Challenges

In this paper, the authors argue that the set of wireless, mobile devices (e.g., portable telephones, tablet PCs, GPS navigators, media players) commonly used by human users enables the construction of what they term a "Digital ecosystem", i.e., an ecosystem constructed out of so-called "Digital organisms" (see below), that can foster the development of novel distributed services. In this paper, a human user equipped with his/her own mobile devices, can be though of as a "Digital Organism" (DO), a subsystem characterized by a set of peculiar features and resources it can offer to the rest of the ecosystem for use from its peer DOs.