Ubiquitous computing Human Computer Interaction

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Ubiquitous computing Human Computer Interaction
The most profound technologies are those that
disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric
of everyday life until they are indistinguishable
from it... There is more information available
at our fingertips during a walk in the woods than
in any computer system, yet people find a walk
among trees relaxing and computers frustrating.
Machines that fit the human environment, instead
of forcing humans to enter theirs, will make
using a computer as refreshing as taking a walk
in the woods.
Mark Weiser (1991), The Computer for the 21st
Century, Scientific American, http//www.ubiq.com/
hypertext/weiser/SciAmDraft3.html
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Ubiquitous computing Human Computer Interaction

• Ubiquitous computing (or ubicomp) is the vision
  of Mark Weiser a computer scientist famed for
  his work at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
  (PARC).
• Sadly, Weiser died in 1999 before his vision was
  realised, except in films such as Minority
  Report.
• Since Weiser more or less coined the term
  ubiquitous computing, other similar terms have
  also become prevalent pervasive computing means
  pretty much the same thing.
• The word pervasive means having the tendency to
  pervade or permeate, or spread throughout, whilst
  ubiquitous means being present everywhere.
• Other phrases include the disappearing computer,
  ambient computing and autonomic computing.

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Ubiquitous Computing Human Computer Interaction
Satyas (or more precisely Mahadev
Satyanarayanans) view of pervasive computing
from around the same time is
the creation of environments saturated with
computing and wireless communication, yet
gracefully integrated with human users. Many key
building blocks needed for this vision are now
viable commercial technologies wearable and
handheld computers, high bandwidth wireless
communication, location sensing mechanisms, and
so on. The challenge is to combine these
technologies into a seamless whole. This will
require a multidisciplinary approach, involving
hardware designers, wireless engineers,
human-computer interaction specialists, software
agent developers
See M. Satyanarayanan (1991), Pervasive
Computing Vision and Challenges, IEEE Personal
Communications, August 1991, pp10-17.http//www2.
cs.cmu.edu/aura/docdir/pcs01.pdf
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Early ubicomp ideas Human Computer Interaction

• Weisers vision inspired work at the Xerox Palo
  Alto Research Center (PARC) in the early 1990s
  and spawned such projects as ParcTab and
  Liveboard.
• The ActiveBadge is another well known early
  project. All such systems tracked users as they
  engaged in activity in their work environment.
• Unfortunately, many early systems were based on
  technologies that were barely adequate for the
  task, so they fell short of expectations.

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ActiveBats Human Computer Interaction

• The ActiveBat project (1998-1999) grew out of a
  need for a portable wireless device that could
  be used for context-aware computing.
• In the first instance the research team at ATT
  had used ActiveBadges to gather contextual
  information, but these had been shown to be too
  restrictive in there use and simplistic in the
  amount of information that they could provide.

• The ActiveBat is a small personal device that can
  communicate with the building infrastructure
  using ultrasonic signalling.

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Mobile Computing Human Computer Interaction

• Since the early 1990s there have been massive
  advances in the production of mobile devices
  that can be wirelessly networked together.
• A PDA or Personal Digital Assistant are handheld
  devices that until recently were used primarily
  as digital replacements for paper
  organisers/diaries etc.
• Early PDAs include the Apple Newton.
• More recently they have become much more flexible
  and the boundaries between PDAs and phones,
  games-consoles, portable multimedia players, and
  laptops are blurring.
• Then there is the availability of wireless
  networking.

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Wireless technologyHuman Computer Interaction

• There are numerous ways nowadays to wirelessly
  link devices. The wireless LAN (WLAN) technology
  Wi-Fi itself encompasses three different IEEE
  standards alone (the now outdated 802.11a, the
  currently popular 802.11b and the new, larger
  capacity 802.11g).
• Alongside WLAN, there are also Wireless Personal
  Area Network (WPAN) technologies which include
  Infrared (IrDA) and Bluetooth and now Zigbee.
• Infrared communications are cheap and reliable
  however infrared is a only a line of sight
  technology and is usually only suitable for
  linking two devices at a time.
• Bluetooth seems to compete directly against IrDA
  and can connect 8 peripherals roughly located in
  the same room.

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PDAs and ubicompHuman Computer Interaction

• Interestingly for use (at least within the
  confines of this unit!) the main issues arising
  from ubicomp are HCI and social ones.
• How can we collaborate with users around us? How
  can we collaborate with the infrastructure around
  us? Do we even want to? What kind of devices,
  software, interaction methods we need to
  implement all this?
• Many prototype ubicomp systems have been built
  around wireless networking (WiFi, IrDA, Bluetooth
  etc) and PDAs (and sometimes mobile phones).
• Such systems are easy to buy and are cheap but
  are they the best devices to implement visionary
  ubicomp systems?
• Well look at some examples from current
  literature.

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iClouds ProjectHuman Computer Interaction

• The iClouds project is a current research
  initiative running at Darmstadt University of
  Technology in Germany.
• The general idea is that we, as mobile computer
  users, may have goals and information that we
  might wish to either seek help on or share,
  respectively.
• By creating an information cloud (or iCloud) many
  anonymous users can do this.
• One idea is that users have iHave and IWish lists
  which can be shared between neighbouring PDAs.

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MobiTip ProjectHuman Computer Interaction

• A very similar project to iClouds is the MobiTip
  project running at Swedish Institute of Computer
  Science, SICS.
• MobiTip runs on Bluetooth enabled Sony Ericsson
  P900 mobile phone and allows its users to enter
  comments, recommendations and tips (hence
  mobile-tip) about anything that they want to
  express an opinion on within a limited spatial
  scope - such as a shopping mall.
• Comments given by one person are made available
  to another when users pass each other in the
  mall, when they approach connection hot spots,
  or on demand.

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Earlier Swedish workHuman Computer Interaction

• For some reason, the Scandinavians are mad about
  ubicomp and the possibilities of it they also
  have some extraordinarily good and prolific
  research institutes.
• Ideas like MobiTip and iCLouds have their roots
  in earlier work such as the Hummingbird project
  (circa 1998) by Lars Erik Holmquist and the
  Future Applications Lab (FAL) at the Viktoria
  Research Institute.
• Hummingbird came at a time when PDAs werent
  readily available as can be seen in the picture,
  but had similar ideas to iClouds etc about
  collaboration of goals and information.

Prototype Hummingbird device
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The Lovebomb and etc.Human Computer Interaction

• Taking sharing information one step further are
  proposed devices like the LoveBomb also from the
  FAL.
• The LoveBomb was a conceptual mobile device that
  allowed people to anonymously communicate
  emotionto other users carrying the device.
• The LoveGety actually commercially implemented
  this idea in Japan (circa 1998). Male and female
  (pictured) LoveGetys could detect each other, and
  would then interrogate each-other for possible
  match between their owners.
• Other examples of related systems include
  Thinking Tags, GroupWear, and the cheesily named
  ProxyLady.

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Shared DisplaysHuman Computer Interaction

• Many research groups are looking at how shared
  displays can be integrated with PDAs.
• For instance, the GroupLab at the University of
  Calgary have a project called Shared Notes
  whilst there is the Interactive Work-spaces
  project (pictured) at Stanford and similar work
  at Univ.of Toronto .
• Much of this work has its roots in CSCW, which
  looks at the design/evaluation of technology to
  support different styles of collaboration across
  time across place between casual and formal
  interactions and between individual and group
  work.

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CSCWHuman Computer Interaction

• The term computer supported cooperative work
  (CSCW) was first coined by Irene Greif and
  Cashman in 1984, at a workshop attended by
  individuals interested in using technology to
  support people in their work.
• According to Carstensen and Schmidt (2002), CSCW
  addresses "how collaborative activities and their
  coordination can be supported by means of
  computer systems."
• On the one hand, many authors consider that CSCW
  and groupware are synonyms. On the other hand,
  different authors claim that while groupware
  refers to real computer-based systems, CSCW
  focuses on the study of tools and techniques of
  groupware as well as their psychological, social,
  and organizational effects.

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Smart Living RoomsHuman Computer Interaction

• One area in which there is a lot of interest at
  present is making the living-room of the future.
• some projects such as Microsofts EasyLiving have
  the aim of making home environments simply easier
  or more enjoyable for everyday users.

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More Smart Living RoomsHuman Computer
Interaction

• Aside from EasyLiving there are masses of smart
  living room or smart house projects going on.
• Some of these projects have found that assistive
  technology applications provide good vehicles for
  stretching research boundaries.
• A consortium in the south west of England have
  created the The Gloucester Smart House a smart
  home that can help dementia sufferers to
  continue to live in their own home for longer.
• Sensors attached to common domestic items help
  remind and inform a person that something needs
  to be done.

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Getting out More Human Computer Interaction

• Many applications of ubicomp (like the smart
  living room scenarios and the smart workplace of
  projects like ActiveBadge) constrain their users
  to indoor environments.
• Projects like Equator (in the UK) are attempting
  to move ubicomp to much more unconstrained
  outdoor arenas.
• One sub-project of Equator was the Ambient Wood
  project which populated a real wood with digital
  devices which school children then interacted
  with through PDAs etc.
• Equator also features lots of work in which
  researchers are attempting to use the physical
  world as a game board.

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Pervasive Games Human Computer Interaction

• Perhaps the first game of its type, Pirates! was
  created at the Viktoria Institute - each player
  was equipped with a PDA and could wander around
  the real world (or sail the ocean!).
• They could interact (i.e fight!) with other
  players when they came in close proximity with
  them. Real world objects also took on
  significance (e.g. as a harbour, or a treasure
  location).
• From the same place is the game PacMan Must Die
  in which some of Pacmans food is positioned on
  the displays of other players PDAs.

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More pervasive gamesHuman Computer Interaction

• Some researchers are looking at ad hoc encounters
  between very mobile users those either riding
  in cars or on motorbikes.
• Pioneers of this are the Interactive Institute in
  Sweden (surprise).
• Once more, like the Lovegety, this exploits
  casual interaction between users. Users can do
  social tasks or engage in a number of games.
• Some are aimed at adults and some at bored
  children.

Example of virtual interaction using RoadRager
Brunnberg, Liselott. The Road Rager - Making
Use of Traffic Encounters in a Mobile Multiplayer
Game. In Proceedings of MUM, 2004.
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Taking it to extremes?Human Computer Interaction

• The ARQuake Project, at the University of
  Southern Australia, ported Quake to an
  augmented reality platform. One minute you
  could be walking around campus, the next a blood
  thirsty alien pushes its way through the crowd
  and heads straight towards you - so you blow its
  brains out it with your laser gun ...
• Human Pacman from the National University of
  Singapore uses AR and Bluetooth tagged objects
  to allow users to wander around acting as
  ghosts/pacman.

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More extremesHuman Computer Interaction

• A pervasive environment is likely to contain many
  different device types traditional input
  devices, such as mice or keyboards, and output
  devices, such as speakers or LEDs.
• Additionally it might contain wireless mobile
  devices, such as pagers, PDAs, cell phones,
  palmtops, mobile gaming devices and so on.
• Furthermore it might also contain smart devices,
  such as intelligent appliances, floor tiles with
  embedded sensors, biosensors, and RFID tag
  systems.
• Many research projects are looking at tagging
  any (and all) everyday objects.

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Will this be reality?Human Computer Interaction

• Most of these applications are still in the
  research lab (with a few notable exceptions
  e.g. the LoveGety).
• The ubicomp community still have a lot of issues
  to solve before most of these applications
  become a reality.
• As already briefly mentioned, many of the issues
  arising from the use of pervasive computing stem
  from social concerns.

From Jessup L.M. and Robey D., The relevance of
social issues in ubiquitous computing.
Communications of the ACM 45(12)88-91, 2002.
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Philosophy and HCIHuman Computer Interaction

• As previously mentioned, approaches like
  usability which have been adopted by the HCI
  community could already be applied to any tool.
• Famously, the phenomenologist philosopher Martin
  Heidegger referred to use of hammers when
  describing mans use of appliances or tools and
  their familiarity.
• Phenomenologists approach philosophy by
  attempting to perceive experience unmediated by
  prior knowledge and abstract theoretical
  assumptions.
• A well regarded HCI book called Where the Action
  Is (MIT Press, 2001) by Paul Dourish expands on
  this notion and embodied interaction in
  particular.

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Invisible interfaces?Human Computer Interaction

• The EU a few years ago had an initiative called
  the disappearing computer hence people started
  talking about invisible interfaces however a
  disappearing computer system should be one that
  is invisible in use - though not necessarily, or
  even usually, in embodiment a notion clearly
  rooted in phenomenological philosophy.
• Technology which is invisible in use does not
  imply that one can walk-up and use it without any
  prior knowledge instead as in the example of
  driving a car, practices that are
  effective-in-use may require long periods of
  learning and practice.
• Skills inherent in our evolutionary make-up
  such as social cognition might also be
  exploited to produce systems that can be
  invisible-in-use.

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Extra Reading for this week Computer Games
Software Engineering

• Mark Weiser (1991), The Computer for the 21st
  Century, Scientific American, http//www.ubiq.com/
  hypertext/weiser/SciAmDraft3.html
• Look at Dourishs webpage about his embodied
  interaction book at http//www.dourish.com/embodie
  d/ and try to get to grips with his summarising
  essay.
• The iClouds website http//iclouds.tk.informatik.
  tu-darmstadt.de/
• The MobiTip website http//www.sics.se/humle/proj
  ects/mobitip/
• Lars Erik Holmquist et al, The Hummingbird
  Mobile Support for Group Awareness, CSCW 1998,
  http//www.viktoria.se/fal/publications/play/1998
  /hummingbird_cscw-demo.pdf
• Weal, M. J., Michaelides, D. T., Thompson, M. K.
  and De Roure, D. C. (2003) The Ambient Wood
  Journals - Replaying the Experience. In
  Proceedings of HT'03 The fourteenth conference on
  Hypertext and Hypermedia,http//eprints.ecs.soton.
  ac.uk/8034/01/p307-weal.pdf

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