Ubiquitous Computing Historical Context 22012006

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Ubiquitous ComputingHistorical Context22/01/2006

• Hans Gellersen

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This Lecture

• Pioneering Work
• The Ubicomp Project at PARC, 1988-1995
• Active Badge Project, Olivetti Research Labs,
  1991
• The Digital Desk, EuroPARC, 1991
• Technological Context
• Moores Law
• Infrastructures that have emerged
• Some relevant trends

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Weisers Vision

• Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
• Father of Ubicomp
• Chief Technologist at Xerox PARC
• began Ubiquitous Computing Project at PARC in
  1988
• Seminal article The Computer of the 21st
  CenturySci.Amer., Sept. 1991

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State of the art 1990

• Personal Computing, mass adoption of PC
• Wired networks LAN/Ethernet, Internet
• No Web
• No Mobile Computers
• No Wireless Computing

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Ubicomp Project at PARC

• The Roots
• Inspired by technology research as well as
  research into peoples actual use of technology
• Computer walls a technology vision leading
  away from the focus on computer as personal tool
• New perspectives on peoples work practices
• Challenging views of work as planned activity
• Plans and Situated Actions, Lucy Suchman

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Ubicomp Project at PARC

• The overall aim in the work of Weiser and
  colleagues was to seamlessly integrate computing
  in everyday activities, so that computing becomes
  effectively invisible in use
• Much like electric motors used all the time, but
  effectively invisible and unnoticed
• The most profound technologies are those that
  disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric
  of everyday life until they are indistinguishable
  from it. (M. Weiser, 1991)

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Ubicomp Project at PARC

• Vintage Videos

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Tabs, Pads and Boards
Liveboard
IR Transceiver
Tabs
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PARC Tab

• Extremely portable computer
• Precursor of todays handheld
• 128 x 64 pixel
• Button Stylus
• Pen strokes precursor of Graffiti
• Used infrared infrastructure
• Always-on communication
• Locating of devices (cell-based)
• Pioneered context-aware computing

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PARCTab System Architecture
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PARCTab Applications
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Liveboard

• Electronic Whiteboard
• Multiple Pens
• Informal Meetings
• Coupled with Pads (Laptops) for personal notes

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Ubicomp Project at PARC

• The work of Weiser and colleagues anticipated
  many things were seeing now
• Hand-held computers
• Always-on wireless networking
• Interactive whiteboards
• Pen and gesture interfaces
• Location and context-awareness

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Active Badge Project

• Olivetti Research Labs Cambridge, 1988-1992
• Indoor Location System
• Tracking of People
• Locatable Badges
• Sensors in the Environment

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Active Badge Project

• Video Active Batch on Beyond 2000

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System Architecture

• Active Badge emitting Infrared signal at regular
  intervals
• Sensors at fixed locations, networked on the LAN
• Sensors record badge sightings
• Centralized location service for queries

Sensor
Badge
Sensor
Sensor
Sensor
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Active Badge Project

• Application
• People Finding
• Phone call forwarding to actual user location (!)
• Pioneered use of location information in computer
  systems
• IR technology adopted in the PARCTab system

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The Digital Desk

• Pierre Wellner, EuroPARC, 1991
• Why a desktop metaphor when you can have a real
  desktop
• Augmented reality a physical desktop augmented
  with computer-based interaction
• Uses computer vision technology

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The Digital Desk

• Video

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The Digital Desk

• Seamless transition between the physical and the
  digital
• Computer use blended into use of the real
  artefact
• Pioneered research on physical-digital interfaces

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This Lecture

• Pioneering Work
• The Ubicomp Project at PARC, 1988-1995
• Active Badge Project, Olivetti Research Labs,
  1991
• The Digital Desk, EuroPARC, 1991
• Technological Context
• Moores Law
• Infrastructures that have emerged
• Some relevant trends

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Technological Context

• Moores Law
• General advance in digital technology
• But there are also bottlenecks
• Infrastructures that have become ubiquitous
• Ubiquitous information, communication, and
  location
• Emerging Technologies
• Ubiquitous identification and sensing

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Moores Law

• Exponential Increase
• Transistors per chip
• Processing speed and storage capacity double
  every 18 months
• Cheaper, smaller, faster
• Similar for communication bandwidth
• Expected to hold at least for another 10 years

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Moores LawElectronics, April 1965
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Moores LawElectronics, April 1965

• has increased at a rate of roughly a factor
  of two per year (see graph ). Certainly over
  the short term, the rate can be expected to
  continue, if not to increase. Over the longer
  term, the rate is a bit more uncertain, although
  there is no reason to believe it will not remain
  nearly constant for at least 10 years. That means
  by 1975

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Moores LawElectronics, April 1965
Source F. Mattern
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Limitations
Not Everything obeys Moores Law
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Limitations

• Energy
• Growth in battery capacity much slower than in
  processor capability and storage capacity
• Size and weight of mobile devices becomes
  increasingly dominated by batteries
• Potential for energy saving limited likewise for
  energy harvesting, and wireless energy
  transmission
• User interface
• While processors and storage shrink there is only
  so much one can do to reduce a UI in size

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Ubiquitous information

• The World-Wide Web
• Ubiquitous information infrastructure
• Universally deployed and integrated
• Some important characteristics
• Universal access, anywhere and anytime
• Ad hoc linking of content and applications
• Simplicity of the usage model
• Contributors focus on content, very low overhead
  for adapting it for the web

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Ubiquitous Personal Communication

• Mobile Telephony (GSM, GPRS, UMTS)
• World-wide adoption as standard, practically
  universal coverage
• June 2006 30 countries with gt100 mobile phone
  penetration (more phones than people)
• Important characteristics
• Mobile phone acts as personal wireless terminal,
  always-on
• Intimate technology always carried, on the body
• SIM subscriber identification module universal
  identification of a user

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Ubiquitous Location

• GPS Global Positioning System
• Outdoor location system
• A network of satellites broadcasting to
  receivers
• Time-of-flight measurements, Accuracy of a few
  metres
• Universal coverage, best in open fields
• Mobile Phone Localization
• Cell-based or more advanced techniques
• Location as by-product of communication

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Identification technology

• RFID Radio-frequency tags
• store small amounts of information that is
  transmitted when they are activated inductively
  (i.e. queried by an antenna)
• very small, very cheap can be attached to
  anything
• Important characteristics
• Identification of physical entities (down to
  mundane products)
• Linking physical objects into a computing
  infrastructure
• Identification also implies location (at the
  point of interrogation)

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Sensor technology

• Sensors as a major driver for innovation in IT
  Products

Source P. Saffo
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Sensor technology

• For example cameras are now everywhere
• CCTV
• WebCams
• Camera-Phones
• For example mobile phones contain
• Microphone
• Camera
• Movement sensor
• Light sensor

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Summary

• Pioneering research on Ubicomp
• Ubicomp Project, Active Badge, Digital Desk
• All early 90s
• Major developments in the 90s
• Wireless networking
• Web, Personal Mobile Devices, GPS
• Emerging technologies
• Ubiquitous identification (RFID etc)
• Sensor integration in computing devices
• Wireless sensor networks