Discovering Points of Interests Through A Web 2.0, Location-based Architecture

We propose a distributed architecture for the support and the deployment of location-based, discovery services in mobile contexts. Web 2.0 technologies are utilized to locate point of interests for the mobile user. Such discovery is based on a mashup of services that queries different yellowpages-like sites, filters and merges the returned items, and exports the final list to be sent to the mobile client. A cross-layer networking technique is employed on the wireless leg. This offers to the user a seamless navigation, while moving through different and heterogeneous wireless networks. Importantly, our approach also balances the network traffic over multiple wireless networks. Results from a real experimental assessment confirm the efficacy of the proposed approach.