Research Topics in Ubiquitous Computing

Jason I. Hongjasonh at cs cmu edu

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jasonh/courses/ubicomp-f2004/readings.html

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jasonh/courses/ubicomp-f2004

Ubiquitous Computing is Coming

Devices in all form factors

Sensors everywhere

Rich variety of inputs and outputs

All wirelessly connected

Integrate computation, communication,

and sensing with physical world

Ubiquitous Computing is ComingDevices in All Form Factors

Ubiquitous Computing is ComingDevices in All Form Factors

Ubiquitous Computing is ComingSensors Everywhere

E911 Find a Place

Find Friend

• RFIDs already in greater use than you may realize• Wal-Mart mandate of Jan 2005

Ubiquitous Computing is ComingSensors Everywhere

Ubiquitous Computing is Coming Rich Variety of Inputs and Outputs

Read my importan

t email

• Short-range wireless for consumers– Bluetooth, HomeRF, 802.11

• Near Field Networks• Personal Area Networks

– Transmit data thru the body

Ubiquitous Computing is Coming All Wirelessly Connected

• Ubicomp field currently very disparate– Systems, networking, HCI, Machine Learning, …

– Different communities, different vocabulary, different papers

• Goals of this course– Establish a common foundation for ubicomp research

– Help advance state of the art

• Difficult, but many opportunities for defining the field!

Just Where Are We Heading?

• Undergrad at Georgia Tech, CS and Math– Cyberguide, first mobile tour guide

• PhD in Computer Science from Berkeley– Dissertation work on privacy and ubicomp systems

• New faculty at HCII– Interests in ubicomp, focusing on privacy, rapid prototyping,

end-user programming, and deployability issues

– Office at NSH 3613

– jasonh at cs cmu edu

Who Am I?

• Name• Background

– PhD, MS, or undergrad?

– What year?

– Which unit? (ie CSD, HCII, CALD, RI, etc)

• Interests– What kinds of research are you doing (if applicable)?

– What do you want to get out of this course?

Who Are You?

• Research = analysis + synthesis– Analysis: understanding other’s work, the good and the bad

• Difficulty is that there are few provably correct answers

– Synthesis: finding new ways to advance state of the art

• Literature survey• Mini-projects• Course project

Structure of this Course

• Read, analyze, critique papers– All research projects fail in some way

– Successful projects get some interesting results anyway

• Class preparation– Reading papers is hard, especially at first

– Read before class

– Brief review of each paper (bring a printout)• ½ page or less• 2 most important things about that paper• 1 major flaw (or ideas for extension / verification)• Will see if can switch to Blackboard online discussions

Literature Survey

• Each person will do 10-20min presentation for a day– Overview of readings

– Highlight what you think are interesting points

– Outline some questions for discussion

• Rest of time devoted to discussion– What are the problems this paper addresses?

– How well does it address them? Realistic? Deployable?

– How to extend this research?

– Grad class, material may be controversial

• I’ll do occasional presentations too

Class Format

• Visions and Challenges of Ubiquitous Computing• Context-Awareness

– Location sensing, uncertainty, prototyping tools

• Applications– Home, workspaces, smart mobs, developing countries

• Privacy• System Architectures

– Sensor networks, RFIDs

Overview of Course Topics

• Small projects to give you a flavor of ubicomp– A few days of work

– Encouraged to work in groups

• Basis of mini-projects– Topiary

– Place Lab

Mini-Projects

• Quickly create mockups of location-based apps• “Run” these mockups with real users to get feedback

Mini-ProjectsTopiary

• PlaceLab location via local database of WiFi Points– Unique WiFi MAC Address -> Latitude, Longitude

– Periodically update your local copy

A

B

C

–Works indoors and in urban canyons

–Works with encrypted nodes

–No special equipment–Privacy-sensitive–Rides the WiFi wave

PlaceLab for Acquiring Location

PlaceLab

SF Bay Area~60000 Nodes

(~4 Megs)

PlaceLab

University of

California Berkeley

Berkeley Campus

~1000 Nodes

• Do a small piece of real research– Teams of 2-3

– “Conference paper” as deliverable

– Want best papers to be published in a real conference• (With some extra work)

• Will put some project ideas online at website– You can choose your own projects as well

Course Project

• Read papers before class– ½ page summaries for each paper

– Signup to do a presentation

• Mini-projects

• Course project

Summary of Your Responsibilities

• Monday is Labor Day, no class until next Wed• Readings

– The Computer for the Twenty-First Century, by Mark Weiser

– Synthetic Serendipity, by Vernor Vinge

– Mike Villa's World, by Harry Goldstein

• Only two summaries for next time– One for Weiser’s paper

– One for Synthetic Serendipity and Mike Villa’s World

• Will see if I can get coffee, tea, and snacks

Next Course

• Original vision of ubicomp written in 1991!– Why don’t we have it today? What would it take?

• How to manage this complexity?– Things are barely interoperable today

– Can barely manage the flow of info today

• What are the core devices?– Buy it at Home Depot, plug it in, and you’re good to go!

• What are the core services of this world?– Equivalent of Google, Yahoo, and Ebay?

• What are the programming abstractions?• Is this really a world we want to live in?

Important Questions to Think About

The Future of Ubicomp?

• Office at NSH 3613• jasonh@cs.cmu.edu• http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jasonh/courses/ubicomp-f2004

Questions?

• Auto-fill location info on web sites

Starbucks

MapQuest

PageModificationURL =http://www.starbucks.com/txtCity=CityNametxtState =RegionCodetxtZip =ZIPCode

Bootstrapping – Initial Apps Web Page Location Auto-Fill

What does ubicomp enable? New Forms of Entertainment

We will reach a point where the combination of powerful processors, limitless data-storage capacity, ubiquitous sensor networks, and deeply embedded user interfaces will create a bond between human and machine “so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.” - Vernor Vinge

One Vision of Ubicomp