Pervasive 2002 Tutorials

Tutorial Abstracts

[T1] Personal Privacy in Pervasive Computing Speaker: Marc Langheinrich (ETH Zurich) Time: Monday Morning (9:00am - 12:30pm), ETZ E7 Abstract: The goal of this tutorial is to provide participants with a thorough background in personal privacy issues relevant for pervasive computing. It is easy to imagine that in a world full of invisible sensory systems, comprehensive digital dossiers could be easily and inconspicuously collected. But how much of today's press coverage in this area is exeggarated, and what are legitimate concerns? What options do we have when it comes to safeguarding our privacy today, and how much of this will work in a future full of pervasive computing systems? This tutorial will begin with examining the nature and history of privacy, and introduce the legal realities in the field of privacy protection worldwide (with a special focus on US and European laws). It then presents privacy tools in use today, mainly from the area of Internet privacy: anonymization techniques, encryption schemes, trust seals, and machine-readable privacy policies such as the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P). The tutorial finishes with examining the special nature of privacy in pervasive computing systems and briefly evaluating the above tools with respect to their suitability in such a setting. About the speaker: Marc Langheinrich received a master's degree in computer science from the University of Bielefeld, Germany, in 1997. Starting in the fall of 1995, he spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Washington, where he also completed his thesis work in the fields of information retrieval and software agents. In the fall of 1997 he joined NEC Research in Japan where he has been working on projects involving personalization and electronic commerce. Since October 1999 he is a research assistant in the Distributed Systems Group at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
[T2] Developing i-mode Services and Mobile Applications with Java Technologies Speakers: Olivier Liechti (Sun Microsystems), Karim Mazouni (Sun Microsystems), Kim Kauffmann (MWebzone) Time: Monday Morning (9:00am - 12:30pm), ETZ E8 Abstract: This tutorial will teach participants how to implement mobile applications for Java-enabled devices. It will provide an introduction to the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) platform and to the Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP). After getting an overview of the platform, participants will learn how to setup a development environment. By studying concrete examples, they will then learn how to define a user interface, use network connections and take advantage of the local persistent store. They will also learn how to cope with limited resources and get insights on code optimization. Different architectures will be presented and in particular the integration with a Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) back-end will be described. Participants will also learn about future developments, including the new MIDP 2.0 specification and related Java Specification Requests (JSRs). Finally, the tutorial will also provide an overview of the popular i-mode system, introduced by NTT DoCoMo in Japan and now available in Europe. A technical description will be provided, allowing participants to get ready to implement their own i-mode services.
[T3] Context Aware Communication Speaker: Bill Schilit (Intel Research Lab Seattle) Time: Monday Morning (9:00am - 12:30pm), ETZ E6 Abstract: This tutorial describes how the changing information about an individual's location, environment, and social situation can be used to initiate and facilitate people's interactions with one another, individually and in groups. Context-aware communication is contrasted with other forms of context-aware computing and we characterize applications in terms of design decisions along two dimensions: the extent of autonomy in context sensing and the extent of autonomy in communication action. A number of context-aware communication applications from the research literature are presented in five application categories. Finally, a number of issues related to the design of context-aware communication applications are presented.
[T4] Data Management for Pervasive Computing Speaker: Anupam Joshi (University of Maryland Baltimore County) Time: Wednesday Afternoon (2:00pm - 5:30pm), HG D22 Abstract: We propose a half day tutorial on the issue of managing data, information and services in a pervasive computing environment. This tutorial will serve to introduce attendees, who we principally believe to be academics/industrial researchers, to issues involved in data management for pervasive environments. The tutorial will start with an overview of the problems presented by pervasive computing environments, from the hardware level to the systems, network and applications level. We will then focus on the data management problems in pervasive environments, and how they pose challenges beyond what traditional work in mobile data management addresses. These include service/information discovery and composition, querying, managing short lived connections, managing context, dealing with streaming data, managing security, etc. amongst others. We will bring out why these problems need to be explicitly addressed and are not automatically solved by the networking layer by itself. We will provide a good overview of the research done in this area in the past few years, and focus on the details of some representative solutions. We will also point out those problems that are still open and challenging.
[T5] Introduction to Wearable Computing Speaker: Thad Starner (Georgia Tech) Time: Wednesday Afternoon (2:00pm - 5:30pm), ETZ E6 Abstract: One problem with developing pervasive computing systems is making them, well, ubiquitous. To deploy computers and networking services everywhere that users might travel requires prohibitive expenses in infrastructure and maintenance. However, there is an alternative: wearable computers. By carrying their own infrastructure, users are guaranteed a certain level of service whereever they go. But what should a wearable computer contain? What is the market for such a device, and when will wearable computing products become profitable? For researchers, what are the intellectual contributions that are unique to wearable computers and not shared with laptops or PDAs? This tutorial will provide an intense introduction to the field of wearable computing from both the research and commercial viewpoints. It will highlight both past success stories and upcoming challenges that can be expected in the coming decade. About the speaker: Thad Starner is a wearable computing pioneer, completing one of the first PhDs addressing the subject while at MIT. He has been using a wearable computer as an integral part of his everyday life since 1993. Starner is a professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech in Atlanta and is currently a visiting professor at the Electrical Engineering department at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Thad is also the CTO of Charmed Technology, a company specializing in high-end wearable computers for R&D as well as low-end wearable computers for industry.
[T6] Pervasive Portals and WebServices Speaker: Martin Welsch (IBM Boeblingen Development Lab) Time: Wednesday Afternoon (2:00pm - 5:30pm), ETZ E7 Abstract: Portal technologies have become increasingly important over time. Especially in the business environment all kinds of portals activities can be seen. Most current commercial systems focus primarily on desktop browser based environments. However, the trend towards pervasive portals with multiple additional channels is already visible. At the same time relatively new web technologies like WebServices enable new levels of integration and distribution of services to be offered in such an environment. This tutorial will cover the basic concepts for pervasive portals and give an introduction into WebServices. Specific implications for the usage of WebServices in portal environments as well as standardization efforts like "WebServices for Remote Portlets" will be discussed.