prototypes in pervasive computing

3
PERVASIVE COMPUTING FOR ROAD TRIPS Marc Böhlen, Jesse Fabian, Dirk Pfeifer, and JT Rinker, The MediaRobotics Lab, University at Buffalo What happens when you mix site- specific design paradigms from the in- stallation arts with sensing technologies common to pervasive computing? That’s the problem students at the University at Buffalo’s Department of Media Study were confronted with when asked to imagine new uses for distributed sensors in automobiles. Long gone are the days when driving was only about efficient travel. Numer- ous electronic gadgets are transforming car culture. Although some electronic devices such as CD players and DVD viewers foster ambient entertainment, the bulk of an automobile’s electronic innards operate unnoticed for control and security. This electronic underbelly offers new opportunities to question the automobile’s role in our modern lives. Given our lab’s desire to expand tech- nologies toward cultural objects, we designed a semester-long workshop on underrepresented aspects of pervasive computing in automobiles. Our focus wasn’t user interaction, usability, or safety issues. Rather, we con- centrated on second-order travel events that typically occur on road trips. The road trip—a strange attractor to many North Americans from Lewis and Clark to Jack Kerouac and beyond—is more about experiencing the lay of the land than goal-directed travel. As such, it offers an entry point into car culture. We supplied students with a proto- typing kit that included temperature sensors, 2D accelerometers, miniature color cameras, an OBD-II diagnostic interface, and a microprocessor-based control environment. We invited them to use these tools to react to the experi- ence of being on the road. One student project explored the pos- sibility of using the changing scenery as an input into a massage seat. The RGB vibrator extracted a histogram of the Prototypes in Pervasive Computing Editor: Anthony D. Joseph UC Berkeley [email protected] Works in Progress 78 PERVASIVE computing Published by the IEEE CS and IEEE ComSoc 1536-1268/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE Figure 1. Soft toys collect image and vibrational travel data and relay it to a base station. The four entries in this Works in Progress department span different aspects of prototype building for pervasive computing. The first discusses ongoing student projects exploring perva- sive computing in automotive environments. The second develops a rapid prototyping envi- ronment that combines both form and function. The third explores the challenges of recogniz- ing situations and recurring contextual information, and the fourth investigates approaches to expressing high-level workflow paradigms for device interactions. —Anthony D. Joseph EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

Upload: hadieu

Post on 04-Mar-2017

212 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Prototypes in Pervasive Computing

PERVASIVE COMPUTING FORROAD TRIPS Marc Böhlen, Jesse Fabian, Dirk Pfeifer,and JT Rinker, The MediaRobotics Lab,University at Buffalo

What happens when you mix site-specific design paradigms from the in-stallation arts with sensing technologiescommon to pervasive computing? That’sthe problem students at the University atBuffalo’s Department of Media Studywere confronted with when asked toimagine new uses for distributed sensorsin automobiles.

Long gone are the days when drivingwas only about efficient travel. Numer-

ous electronic gadgets are transformingcar culture. Although some electronicdevices such as CD players and DVDviewers foster ambient entertainment,the bulk of an automobile’s electronicinnards operate unnoticed for controland security. This electronic underbelly

offers new opportunities to question theautomobile’s role in our modern lives.Given our lab’s desire to expand tech-nologies toward cultural objects, wedesigned a semester-long workshop onunderrepresented aspects of pervasivecomputing in automobiles.

Our focus wasn’t user interaction,usability, or safety issues. Rather, we con-centrated on second-order travel eventsthat typically occur on road trips. Theroad trip—a strange attractor to manyNorth Americans from Lewis and Clarkto Jack Kerouac and beyond—is moreabout experiencing the lay of the landthan goal-directed travel. As such, itoffers an entry point into car culture.

We supplied students with a proto-typing kit that included temperaturesensors, 2D accelerometers, miniaturecolor cameras, an OBD-II diagnosticinterface, and a microprocessor-basedcontrol environment. We invited themto use these tools to react to the experi-ence of being on the road.

One student project explored the pos-sibility of using the changing scenery asan input into a massage seat. The RGBvibrator extracted a histogram of the

Prototypes in PervasiveComputing

Editor: Anthony D. Joseph ■ UC Berkeley ■ [email protected]

Works in Progress

78 PERVASIVEcomputing Published by the IEEE CS and IEEE ComSoc ■ 1536-1268/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE

Figure 1. Soft toys collect image and vibrational travel data and relay it to a base station.

The four entries in this Works in Progress department span different aspects of prototype

building for pervasive computing. The first discusses ongoing student projects exploring perva-

sive computing in automotive environments. The second develops a rapid prototyping envi-

ronment that combines both form and function. The third explores the challenges of recogniz-

ing situations and recurring contextual information, and the fourth investigates approaches to

expressing high-level workflow paradigms for device interactions. —Anthony D. Joseph

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

Page 2: Prototypes in Pervasive Computing

miniature camera’s three main colorbands and mapped them to motor com-mands for a massage seat, resulting insituation-specific massages while driv-ing. Blue colors will generate a lower-body massage, red colors an upper-bodymassage, and green colors a middle-body massage.

The road trip isn’t only about goingaway, but also returning. In a second proj-ect, a student integrated the miniaturecamera and a 2D accelerometer into twostuffed toy animals (see figure 1). As thecar drove around, the camera-enabled toyrecorded the optical flow of the changingscenery and the accelerometer-enabledtoy registered large bumps on the road.As the vehicle approached home, the toyssent their data via wireless link back tothe garage where a screen greeted thereturning passengers with a free-forminterpretation of the data acquired dur-ing the trip.

Our projects are still a work inprogress. However, we think that ex-panding pervasive computing to theunstructured aspects of our lives willresult in richer information spaces overtime. For more information on ourwork, see www.buffalo.edu/~mrbohlen/automotive_electronics.html or contactMarc Böhlen at [email protected].

D.TOOLS: INTEGRATEDPROTOTYPING FOR PHYSICALINTERACTION DESIGNBjörn Hartmann, Scott R. Klemmer, andMichael Bernstein, Stanford UniversityHCI Group

In product design, prototypes—approximations of a product along somedimensions—are the essential mediumfor information, interaction, integration,and collaboration. Information appli-ances such as mobile phones, digitalcameras, and music players are a grow-ing area of ubiquitous computing.Designers currently create two separatesets of prototypes: “looks-like” proto-types that show only the device’s form(the atoms) and “works-like” prototypes

that use a computer display to demon-strate the interaction (the bits). Becauseof the required skill and time investment,designers don’t build comprehensiveprototypes that join form and functionuntil late in development.

At that time, monetary constraintsand resource commitments prohibitfundamental design changes. To addressthis problem, we’re creating d.tools. Thed.tools integrated design environmentlets designers rapidly create prototypesof bits and atoms in concert early intheir process. It also fosters shareddesign conversations and encouragesiterations of the design-test-analyzecycle. d.tools is a rough-and-ready toolfor creating interactive prototypes asrapidly as designers create paper andfoam core prototypes. Our researchexplores a design tool that’s both low-threshold (it’s easy to create the proto-types) and high-ceiling (it’s possible toprototype complex interfaces). It pro-vides a library of plug-and-play hard-ware components and a visual author-ing environment for creating interactionmodels (see figure 2). d.tools achievesextensibility through a hardware and

software extension architecture basedon open standards so engineers and pro-grammers can build upon high-leveldesign specifications.

For more information, see http://hci.stanford.edu/dtools or email BjörnHartmann at [email protected] orScott Klemmer at [email protected].

DESIGN PATTERNS FORRECOGNIZING SITUATIONSSeng Loke, Caulfield School of Information Technology, Monash University

Pervasive computing applications,from aged care to fire safety, often needto recognize the physical situations ofpeople, devices, and everyday objects.Various sensor hardware and reasoningprograms have been employed, fromjudging human interruptibility1 todetermining an individual’s activity ora device’s situation.2 Such work mightdevelop context-aware mobile phones,make appliances safe, disseminate wire-less advertisements, or optimize inter-action. As such applications proliferate

OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2005 PERVASIVEcomputing 79

Figure 2. The d.tools visual authoring environment lets designers rapidly create interactionmodels; the hardware components let them build tangible interfaces for these models.

Page 3: Prototypes in Pervasive Computing

and sensing technology advances, theapproaches become more diverse. Anapplication might recognize the same orsimilar situations in different settings orfrom different perspectives, acquiringthe same context information (forexample, location) in different ways.Application developers might tacklerecurring problems in recognizing situ-ations using a library of solutions (thatis, situation patterns) codified in a pat-tern language. According to the HillsideGroup (see http://hillside.net/patterns),patterns “help software developersresolve recurring problems encountered.Patterns help create a shared languagefor communicating insight and experi-ence about these problems and theirsolutions.”

Our first situation pattern languageuses logic programming (which is ab-stract and enables relationships betweensensors), sensor-acquired context, andhigh-level reasoning.3 We’re also work-ing on creating more general templatesfor situation patterns akin to design pat-terns.4 Such a situation pattern includesthe pattern name, the situation to be rec-ognized, the applicability and assump-tions concerning the solution, the solu-tion (that is, the sensors and reasoningtechniques used), the rationale, knownuses and problems, and related situationpatterns (for example, a pattern for unin-terruptible situations1).

For more information, contact SengLoke at [email protected].

REFERENCES

1. J. Fogarty et al., “Predicting Human Inter-ruptibility with Sensors,” ACM Trans.Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI),vol. 12, no.1, 2005, pp. 119–146.

2. H. Gellersen et al., “Physical Prototypingwith Smart-Its,” IEEE Pervasive Comput-ing, vol. 3, no. 3, 2004, pp.12–18.

3. S.W. Loke, “Representing and Reasoningwith Situations for Context-Aware Perva-sive Computing: A Logic Programming Per-spective,” Knowledge Eng. Review, vol. 19,no. 3, 2005, pp. 213–233.

4. E. Gamma et al., Design Patterns, Addison-Wesley, 1995.

RAPIDLY PROTOTYPINGDEVICE ECOLOGYINTERACTIONSSeng Loke and Sea Ling, CaulfieldSchool of Information Technology,Monash University

The American Heritage Dictionarydefines ecology as the relationshipbetween organisms and their environ-ment. We envision the computing plat-form of the 21st century:

• taking the form of device ecologies,• automating life tasks and work, and• comprising collections of devices (in the

environment and on users) that inter-act synergistically with one another,with users, and with Internet resources,supported by appropriate software andcommunication infrastructures rang-ing from Internet-scale to very-short-range wireless networks.

We’re developing a high-level modelfor describing interactions amongdevices based on the workflow para-digm,1 akin to Michael Dertouzos’automation scripts.2 Users can translatescripts in our high-level language, eco,into a specialized Business Process Exe-cution Language for Web Services spec-ification. They can then execute thescripts via a device ecology workflow,or decoflow, engine. For example, wecan translate the script

turn on room lights; close drapes; show news on television

into a decoflow among three devices (theroom lights, drapes, and television) anduse the decoflow engine to execute it, asfigure 3 shows. Each decoflow task mightinvolve a conversation with devices orInternet resources. Web services providea uniform approach to accessing devices(interfaced as a Web services collection)and Internet resources.

Our system also lets you translate suchscripts into Petri net models for analysisto predict their effects on the environ-

ment (such as noise level, temperature,and brightness) before execution.3

For more information on the modeland engine, including further publica-tions, log on to www.csse.monash.edu.au/~swloke/DECO.html or emailSeng Loke at [email protected] or Sea Ling at [email protected].

REFERENCES

1. S.W. Loke, “Service-Oriented Device Ecol-ogy Workflows,” Proc. 1st Int’l Conf. Ser-vice-Oriented Computing, Springer, 2003,pp. 559–574.

2. M. Dertouzos, The Unfinished Revolution:How to Make Technology Work for Us—Instead of the Other Way Around, Collins,2002.

3. S. Smanchat et al., “Asynchronous and Syn-chronous Communications in Petri Nets forRun-Time Analysis of a Device Ecology,”to be published in Proc. 7th Int’l Conf.Information Integration and Web-basedApplications and Services, 2005.

WORKS IN PROGRESS

W O R K S I N P R O G R E S S

80 PERVASIVEcomputing www.computer.org/pervasive

User inputs

User interface level

High-level workflow tolow-level workflow translator

Low-level device ecologyworkflow engine

Device conversationsexecution and management

High-level workflow

Low-level workflow

Conversations

Service calls

Device ecology and Web resources

Figure 3. The decoflow engine architecture.