Content and Code Adaptation for Small-Device Computing

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Content and Code Adaptation for Small-Device
Computing
?fcmlau_at_csis.hku.hk

• Francis C.M. Lau
• Department of Computer Science Information
  Systems
• The University of Hong Kong
• PDCAT 2003 Chengdu, China

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Popular Computing

• 70s one computer, many users
• 80s one computer, one user
• 90s many (connected) computers, many users
  distributed computing
• 21st Century many computers, one user
• many computers, connected and disconnected, one
  user, many users ubiquitous computing

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My Future Handheld

• All in one phone, PDA, wallet, game console,
  remote terminal, ad-hoc networking
• That means a lot of software big and fat!?
• But what I really want is lean and thin and mean
• Lean simple software which does only what I
  want
• Thin thats all the space in my pocket
• Mean affordable

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Lean and Thin Computing

• The (thin) client-server paradigm, works but in
  limited ways
• Too thin a browser-only device, a remote
  terminal
• Future devices are more powerful than just that

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Rich Computing

• The Internet as the big hard disk
• Not just contents, but software come and go on
  demand
• Pay-per-use subscription model
• Browser plug-ins and Java applets not lean
  enough, and some require just too much resources
• Software in terms of functionalities

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Remember UNIX?

• Small is beautiful
• Make each program do one thing well
• Choose portability over efficiency
• Store data in flat ASCII files
• Avoid captive user interfaces
• Make every program a filter

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UNIX Philosophy Applied

• Small software components implementing single
  functionalities
• Bigger functions runtime-composable from small
  components
• Download on demand, and disposable
• Standard formats and interfaces (eg. XML)
• Shared GUI

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Awareness and Adaptation

• An intelligent supporting architecture
• Aware of the come and go of mobile users
• Choices of functions, depending on situation the
  location, the device, the user,
• Fast reacting nearby proxy
• Proxies united, within certain locality

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The Edge is Getting Thicker

• Person device middleware (proxies) Internet
• The abstract cloud moves with the client
  personalized cuddleware, nomadic computing

Internet
proxies united
metropolis
client
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Componentized Software

• Executable code as puzzle pieces
• Fast start, like contents
• Software download pipelining first-come-first-ex
  ecute, the most needed functionalities first

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Two HKU Projects

• The Sparkle Project code adaptation
• PDF document content adaptation system content
  adaptation