Application software

About: Application software is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 12185 publications have been published within this topic receiving 219822 citations. The topic is also known as: software application & application software.

Customer programmable automated integrated voice/data technique for communication systems

Abstract: The present invention enables multi-windowing agent computer terminals, that answer a variety of, e.g., telemarketing calls, to (i) receive call-related information from a communication system at an agent terminal for automatic display in a "telephony" window, and (ii) automatically send such information to a host computer system application software and retrieve caller desired information based on the calling or called number for display in a "host application" window without requiring a caller to provide verbal information. The present invention also enables an agent terminal to automatically transfer caller-related information from one window to another window via programmable function key commands which can be programmed by a user/system administrator regarding what information is to be copied and where and when to copy it. This allows the user/system administrator to program the system to (1) retrieve information using the received call-related data without routing caller data to the host computer application software prior to its delivery to the agent terminal, and (2) automatically transmit collected data to the host database at a call's conclusion.

Beauty and the Beast: Diverting Modern Web Browsers to Build Unique Browser Fingerprints

Abstract: Worldwide, the number of people and the time spent browsing the web keeps increasing. Accordingly, the technologies to enrich the user experience are evolving at an amazing pace. Many of these evolutions provide for a more interactive web (e.g., boom of JavaScript libraries, weekly innovations in HTML5), a more available web (e.g., explosion of mobile devices), a more secure web (e.g., Flash is disappearing, NPAPI plugins are being deprecated), and a more private web (e.g., increased legislation against cookies, huge success of extensions such as Ghostery and AdBlock). Nevertheless, modern browser technologies, which provide the beauty and power of the web, also provide a darker side, a rich ecosystem of exploitable data that can be used to build unique browser fingerprints. Our work explores the validity of browser fingerprinting in today's environment. Over the past year, we have collected 118,934 fingerprints composed of 17 attributes gathered thanks to the most recent web technologies. We show that innovations in HTML5 provide access to highly discriminating attributes, notably with the use of the Canvas API which relies on multiple layers of the user's system. In addition, we show that browser fingerprinting is as effective on mobile devices as it is on desktops and laptops, albeit for radically different reasons due to their more constrained hardware and software environments. We also evaluate how browser fingerprinting could stop being a threat to user privacy if some technological evolutions continue (e.g., disappearance of plugins) or are embraced by browser vendors (e.g., standard HTTP headers).

Improving web application testing with user session data

Abstract: Web applications have become critical components of the global information infrastructure, and it is important that they be validated to ensure their reliability. Therefore, many techniques and tools for validating web applications have been created. Only a few of these techniques, however, have addressed problems of testing the functionality of web applications, and those that do have not fully considered the unique attributes of web applications. In this paper we explore the notion that user session data gathered as users operate web applications can be successfully employed in the testing of those applications, particularly as those applications evolve and experience different usage profiles. We report results of an experiment comparing new and existing test generation techniques for web applications, assessing both the adequacy of the generated tests and their ability to detect faults on a point-of-sale web application. Our results show that user session data can produce test suites as effective overall as those produced by existing white-box techniques, but at less expense. Moreover, the classes of faults detected differ somewhat across approaches, suggesting that the techniques may be complimentary.

Web browser control for incorporating web browser functionality into application programs

Abstract: A web browser control allows application program developers to incorporate web browser functionality into application programs. The web browser control exposes web browsing functionality to application programs through an application program interface. This interface comprises member functions, events and properties. The member functions provide high level services such as Navigate to a URL, go forward or backward in a navigation stack, or refresh the display of an HTML page. The events are notification messages that the control sends to a host application to notify the application about actions that have taken place or are about to take place. The properties provide status information about an instance of a control. A host application can create several instances of the web browser control and communicate with them through the interface on each instance.

Sharing using social networks in a composable Web of Things

Abstract: In the emerging “Web of Things”, digitally augmented everyday objects are seamlessly integrated to the Web by reusing Web patterns such as REST. This results in an ecosystem of real-world devices that can be reused and recombined to create new ad-hoc applications. This, however, implies that devices are available to the world. In this paper, we propose a platform that enables people to share their Web-enabled devices so that others can use them. We illustrate how to rely on existing social networks and their open APIs (e.g. OpenSocial) to enable owners to leverage the social structures in place for sharing smart things with others. We finally discuss some of the challenges we identified towards a composable Web of Things.