This document discusses the concept of "liquid software", which refers to a multi-device software experience that allows users to seamlessly continue their activities from one device to another. It notes that as more consumers have multiple devices, managing experiences across those devices will become important. The document outlines some techniques for building liquid software, including responsive web design for user interfaces, agent frameworks for application state, mobile backend as a service (mBaaS) for backend services, and serialization for application logic. It concludes that liquid software will change how people develop, deploy and use software by making applications interoperable across all devices with no dependencies on specific operating systems or vendors.

1. Towards Liquid Web Applications
Tommi Mikkonen, Kari Systä
Department of Pervasive Computing
Tampere U of Tech, Tampere,
Finland
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3.7.2015
Cesare Pautasso
Faculty of Informatics
University of Lugano, Lugano,
Switzerland

2. Have you ever wondered how computers work
in Star Trek era…..
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3. Why don’t my computers just stay in sync
and cooperate automatically, then?
The era of standalone devices is
coming to an end; no single device
dominates your digital life.
Consumers will inevitably have
more devices than today;
management of those devices will
become an issue.
By the end of this decade seamless
multi-device operation will be the
expected behavior.
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4. Liquid Software
• By liquid software, we refer to a multi-device
software experience that can seamlessly “flow”
from one device to another.
• Virtualized but personal computing experience
that is independent of any particular device, OS
platform, or vendor ecosystem.
• Liquid software allows the users to seamlessly
roam and continue their activities on any
available device or any “piece of glass”.
3.
7.
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5. Liquid Software Demonstrated
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Corning, Inc., A Day Made of Glass 2, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZkHpNnXLB0

6. What we have done?
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7. How we have done it?
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User interface -> Responsive web design
App state -> Agent framework, virtualization
Backend services -> (m)BaaS
App logic -> Serialization approaches

8. Defining the serialization APIs, making things work
coherently, experimenting with different synchronization
techniques (p2p vs server based), setting guidelines, …
Now in the middle of putting it all together
(look for ICWE’16 for eventual implementation :-)
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User interface -> Responsive web design
App state -> Agent framework, virtualization
Backend services -> (m)BaaS
App logic -> Serialization approaches

9. Conclusions
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Liquid software will dramatically change the way people
develop, deploy and use software.
No CPU, OS, or device dependencies
The Web is the platform.
Applications are interoperable across all devices.
For future reading:
http://lively.cs.tut.fi/publications/LiquidSoftwareManifesto-2013.pdf

10. Thank you...…….. Any questions?
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