The role of auto-ID technologies in mobile E-commerce databases (vision paper)

In this environment each mobile peer has a local database that stores and manages a collection of reports (where each report is a product record, or a coupon), and all the local databases maintained by the mobile peers form a mobile e-commerce (or, more generally, a mobile P2P) database. Queries on this database are posed by potential customers, and they search for coupons and products pertaining to a limited geographic environment. For example, a customer may search for a store that sells a ThinkPad 61 power cord in a mall or an airport, or for a coupon on an Adidas tennis racquet that is accepted by the SportsMart store in the mall. The peers communicate reports and queries to neighbors directly. However, observe that the wireless technologies have a short range compared to the search area (e.g. a mall). Thus, reports and queries need to propagate by transitive multi-hop transmissions. If a query locates the answer product information in a remote device, the information may be propagated to the query originator in a P2P fashion, or via the Internet. Observe that the query cannot be sent directly via the Internet since the id of the device storing the answer is not known; thus, local dissemination is ensured by multi-hop short-range wireless communication. However, if the id of the query originator is appended to the query, then it is possible to propagate the answer back to the originator via the infrastructure.