ETH Zurich : Computer Science : Pervasive Computing : Distributed Systems : Events : Ubicomp Summer School : Lectures

Summer School on Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing

August 7-14, 2002, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany

Lectures

John Barton

A Brief Survey of US Ubicomp Projects (45 min)

As a new field, Ubiquitous Computing is still being defined. In part ubicomp is defined by the projects that choose to be called ubicomp. I will give some examples I am familiar with from groups in the US, using a "systems" point of view to relate these projects. In addition I will use these projects as examples to discuss ubiquitous computing research techniques.

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A Web-Based Nomadic Computing System (45 min)

To give a more in-depth view of one system I will describe our Project at HP Labs to develop a Web-Based Nomadic Computing System. Physical hyperlinks connect physical entities -- people, places, or things -- to virtual resources on the Web. Nomadic users of handheld Web browsers can traverse links they encounter, giving them simple context-dependent views of resources around them without tracking the users. Printers, projectors, and picture frames that accept hyperlinks allow these users to bring bits of the virtual world into their physical environment.

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Simulation as a Tool for Research in Ubiquitous Computing (45 min)

Ubiwise is an open-source simulator for ubiquitous computing. The simulator concentrates on computation and communications devices, either integrated with physical environments or carried by people. It maintains a three dimensional model of a physical environment viewed by users on a desktop computer through two windows. One window uses the Quake III Arena graphics engine to show a first-person view of the physical environment. The other window from a Java program shows a close-up view of devices a user may manipulate using the desktop keyboard and mouse in place of physical controls. Multiple users can attach to the same server to create interactive ubiquitous computing scenarios.

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Ubiquitous Exercise (1.0 h)

In this exercise will try to imagine some of the potential in pervasive computing and experience some of the challenges. We will break up into teams; each team will be assigned two fantasy venues, for example a school, a home, an office, a train, a museum, and a shopping area. Each team will have a large collection of (pictures of ;-) computer and communications devices. The goal for the exercise is to imagine a useful and/or pleasant experience using any of this future technology. The properties of the devices can be changed by the team without regard to cost or development time but physical laws must be obeyed (e.g. no teleportation ;-). Each team will give a short presentation of their scenario; we will discuss what fundamental issues the examples raise and the kinds of research work needed to explore those issues.

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Nigel Davies

Distributed Systems Support for Mobile and Pervasive Computing (1.5 h)

In this I'll take a broad look at different platforms and paradigms for mobile and pervasive computing. I'll talk about historical systems such as Rover and MOST and more recent efforts such as tuple-space based platforms, concluding with a look at systems such as UPnP and Jini. I'll pull in material from Tim and Armando's paper in IEEE Pervasive.

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Experiences in Developing and Deploying the Archetypal Context-Aware Computing Application (1.5 h)

In this I'll look at research work in the field of context-aware tour guides. I'll talk about past, present and future research and focus on GUIDE as a case study of the practical issues in deploying ubicomp systems. I'll generalize from GUIDE to other ubicomp applications.

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Anind Dey

Context-Aware Computing (1.5 h)

Give a historical perspective on context-aware computing: what it is, why it's important to ubiquitous computing. Talk about novel applications that have been built, programming support for context-aware applications and where the interesting research issues are on this topic.

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Augmentation of Environments (1.5 h)

Augmentation of environments and people/objects in the environment. Discuss the two approaches (and the combination of these approaches) for supporting novel interaction. Give examples and discuss when it's appropriate to use one or the other.

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Evaluation of Ubicomp Applications and Systems (1.0 h)

Evaluation of ubiquitous computing applications and systems. Talk about the traditional systems and HCI-based methods for evaluating desktop applications and discuss which of these approaches are or are not appropriate and why.

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Hans Gellersen

Sensing in Ubiquitous Computing (1.5 h)

Ubiquitous computing is closely associated with visions of smarter devices and environments capable of proactive services to their users. Obviously, sensing is a key enabling technology to make this possible. This lecture will investigate what sensing is used for in ubiquitous computing, and in which ways this differs from more traditional sensing applications. We'll discuss perception challenges (how extract meaning from sensor-level observations), architectural issues (e.g. sensors in the device vs in the environment) and systems challenges (e.g. energy constraints).

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Computer-Augmented Environments: Back to the Real World (1.5 h)

This talk adopts its title from a CACM special issue published in 1993. The aim is to convey a design-driven perspective of ubiquitous computing which is based on the primacy of the physical world and the ideal of introducing computing technology unobtrusively. We will discuss design affordances of physical artefacts and structures, and review research work on augmentation of artefacts for digital interaction (e.g. tangible user interfaces, and ambient displays). The session will conclude with an introduction to a design exercise.

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Design Exercise on Computer-Augmented Environments (1.0 h)

This is a design exercise to further explore ideas raised in the preceding lecture. For this exercise, we'll break into small groups, and each group will get an assignment for augmentation of a set of artefacts or a place at Dagstuhl.

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Marc Langheinrich

The Case for Ubicomp Privacy (1.5 h)

In the first session, I'd like to explore the nature of privacy, its history and driving factors, and how these will influence the way we perceive and value our privacy in a world full of smart, communicating objects that monitor our every moves.

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Tools for Ubicomp Privacy (1.5 h)

The second session will look at some privacy-enhancing-technologies and examine if and how these present a viable option for keeping our privacy in a future full of ubiquitous computing. Many experts agree that technology alone is not sufficient, but that legal means must complement any such technical solution. Although plenty such legal means exist, I want to give a brief overview on what kinds of laws exist worldwide and what use they can be in the future. Last not least I also want to touch on the role of ethics within this framework.

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Friedemann Mattern

Introducing the Summer School and Ubiquitous Computing Technologies (1.5 h)

The opening session consists of two parts: The first part will mention some organizational issues and introduce the lecturers and the schedule. The second part gives an overview on pertinent technology trends. We will assume that all participants know (or think that they know) what ubiquitous and pervasive computing is, but assessing the long-term trends and speculating about the future development of relevant technologies is probably interesting and relevant.

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Smart Identification (1.5 h)

We explain how RFIDs (i.e., "radio tags" or "smart labels") work and we give give a short overview on smart card technologies. We also mention current and future applications of smart labels.

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Physical-Virtual Integration, Ubicomp Applications, Ubicomp Implications (1.5 h)

We show how smart labels, wireless sensors, embedded processors, together with the Internet back-end infrastructure, contribute to the integration of the physical world and the virtual world. Smart everyday objects enable many new applications and business ideas, and create unique opportunities and challenges. Living in a smart environment has interesting consequences, however.

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Short Tutorial on Wireless Technologies and Mobile Computing (1.5 h, optional lecture)

An optional evening lecture for those participants who have little knowledge on these subjects.

Bluetooth (1.5 h, optional lecture)

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Thad Starner

Wearable Computers as Intelligent Agents (3.0 h)

Creating intelligent agents that may assist the user on a second-by-second basis during their everyday life is a unique challenge that has few parallels with the past. Research into perception, user modeling, and interface design will be necessary to create compelling assistants that do not interfere with the user's normal work and lifestyle. This lecture will concentrate on development platforms, perception techniques, intelligent agents, and evaluation methods that have been used in the past or are currently being developed.

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Power and Heat in Ubiquitous Computing (1.5 h)

While RAM size, CPU speed, and hard disk storage size have increased exponentially over the past 10 years for mobile devices, battery energy density has increased by less than a factor of 3. Thus, energy must be a "first-class" design issue whenever discussing devices for mobility or for distribution into an unpowered environment. In addition, the heat generated from using this energy can prove to be a limiting factor in speed of computation; in fact, this problem is one of the primary concerns of laptop manufacturers. We will explore alternative ways of powering and cooling ubiquitous computing devices, discuss a basic overview of the physics involved, and provide the basic mathematical tools needed to analyze a system. Emphasis will be on wearable systems and designing computing infrastructure for developing nations.

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Guest Lecture by Mark Billinghurst

Collaborative Augmented Reality (45 min)

Augmented Reality (AR) interfaces typically involve the overlay of virtual imagery over the real world. In this presentation I describe how AR techniques can be used to enhance face to face and remote collaboration. In our research we have discovered that augmented reality can be used to restore spatial cues normally missing in remote collaboration and provide an intuitive way of interacting with virtual models in a face to face setting.

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All Lecturers and Participants

Group Work on Ubicomp Scenarios (3.0 h)

On the first day of the summer school, participants get some papers that deal with classical predictions about the future (e.g., "as we may live"), recent Ubicomp scenarios, some articles that are rather skeptical with respect to the Ubicomp future, some optimistic and naive predictions, but also some serious predictions. Participants should read these papers during the first days. In a first group work session, groups of 10-12 participants discuss these papers and come up with their opinion and their own idea about the future with Ubicomp. In a second session, those findings will be presented to all and hopefully discussed in a controversial way.

Friedemann Mattern: Group Work on Ubicomp Scenarios
Ives Punie: Scenarios for AmI & AmI@Home project
Vlad Coroama: Ubicomp Implications

Participants' Workshop (4.5 h distributed over 3 days)

Participants give a 10 minutes presentation on their work and interests. Abstracts of the workshop contributions are available here.

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