september 2005 sense and sensibility professor paddy nixon school of computer science and...

September 2005

Sense and Sensibility

Professor Paddy NixonSchool of Computer Science and Informatics

October 4, 2005 http://srg.cs.ucd.ie

What I’ll tell you

A brief history of computer time

What does Moore’s Law imply?

What does Nixon’s Law imply?

What is Adaptive Information

Big issues in Adaptive Information

From Computer Science to Informatics

Conclusions


The future is relative

Only six electronic computers would be needed to satisfy all the United States computing needs.

Howard Aitken, 1947


Put this in perspective

There are still less than 400 million machines currently connected and about 600 million users of the Internet

A tiny percentage of the world's population.

In 2001, the PC industry reported its first dip in sales.

Over 2 billion mobile phones

My mobile phone is comparable in power to my first PC


A timeline… 1948 – The baby is built in Manchester

1949 – The EDSAC, Memory: 1K words, 17 bits, Speed:714 operations per second

1951 – UKs first commercial computer at Lyons TEA … they started making computers and TEA

1956 – MIT build first general purpose computer

1959 - IBM's 7000 series mainframes were the company's first transistorized computers.

1960 - The precursor to the minicomputer, DEC's PDP-1 sold for $120,000. One of 50 built, the average PDP-1 included with a cathode ray tube graphic display and first computer game!

1964 – CDC 6600 3 MIP machine

1966 – ILLIAC, 200 MIP DARPA machine


More of the timeline

1972 Hewlett-Packard announced the HP-35 as "a fast, extremely accurate electronic slide rule" with a solid-state memory similar to that of a computer.

1974 Researchers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center designed the Alto

1976 The Cray I made its name as the first commercially successful vector processor. The fastest machine of its day, its speed came partly from its shape, a C, which reduced the length of wires and thus the time signals needed to travel across them. Speed: 166 million floating-point operations per second, Size: 58 cubic feet, Weight: 5,300 lbs.

1979 Visicalc 'responsible' for 25% of all Apple II sales.

1980 Sinclair's ZX-80 launched

1981 First IBM PC - $1365, Xerox Star - $16,000.

1982 BBC's "The Computer Programme" broadcast. Many people buy the BBC Micro made by Acorn.

January 23rd 1984 Macintosh launched


Baby - 1948 Successfully executed its first program on 21st June 1948


Baby – 1967


Baby - 2000

Source: http://www-ccs.cs.umass.edu/~shri/iPic.html


Moore’s Law

Gordon Moore (Co founder of HP) in the 1970’s predicted that we’d be able to squeeze twice as many transistors into

a chip every 24 months.

This prediction, minorly modified, still holds.


Moore’s law

Silicon Transistors

Source: Kurtzweilai.net

Molecular Transistors


100

100,000,000


10,000 m3

<100 cm3


The consequences

All of humanity’s computational power

by 2050

One human brain


Nixon’s Law


All this power and it won’t do what I want!

QuickTime™ and aYUV420 codec decompressor

are needed to see this picture.


Conclusion 1

So it’s no longer about what computers can do…

We know all about that, and Moore’s Law gives us a good idea of what the future holds at the processing level…

…it’s about what people can do with computers

…and we still haven’t really scratched the surface of what computers and readily-available information can do for daily life and everyday artefacts

September 2005

The Third Wave: Sensing the world


Pervasive Computing

Ubiquitous (or Pervasive) computing names the third wave in computing, just now beginning. First were mainframes, each shared by lots of people. Now we are in the personal

computing era, person and machine staring uneasily at each other across the desktop. Next comes ubiquitous

computing, or the age of calm technology, when technology recedes into the background of our lives.“

Mark Weiser, Xerox


What is Pervasive Computing?

The correct information, delivered at the correct time, to the correct place, in the correct format.

One solution:

Provide everything in

one place.

You might ever,

conceivably need


Sense the world and action

User movement in space triggers events in system

System controls actuators

September 2005

Some Sensor Examples

Contextual device interaction


Floodnet

Tidal channel at low and high tide


Database

Web

GIS VisualisationReal-time output/

Simulator

Mini Broker

Field Side

Database Side

Mobile PhoneNetwork

Model

IBM/MQ


Grid-based Medical Devices for Everyday Health

Patients are remotely monitored using a series of small mobile and wearable devices constructed from an arrangement of existing sensors

Information collected from these remote devices includes accelerometer and GPS information in order to provide context

Information is made available using Grid technology

Medical professionals have tools to analyse on-line medical information and are able to access these through remote interfaces.


MIAS - Devices

Exploring the development of mobile medical technologies that can be remotely connected onto a distributed grid infrastructure

- Continuous monitoring of multiple signals via wearable devices

- Periodic monitoring using Java phones and blood glucose measures

All signals available to a broad community and can be processed using standard Grid Services


AsynchronousMobile World

Grid Services

Java Phone+

Blood Monitor

ProxyBuffers Material

for sending on

Grid based

Storage Services

StandardGrid

Service for feature detection

Wearable Devices

ProxyConverts Signalsto database record

Visualisation Services

Display

Grid pr

otoco

l

Grid protocol

Grid protocol

Grid protocol

Patients

Clinicians


Wearable Device

Easy Plug and Play of Sensors

Wireless connection using 802.11

Positioning information from GPS

Nine wire sensor bus running through wearable to allow new sensors

Sensor bus

GPS aerial


Range of different sensors

ECG

Oxygen saturation

Body movement

- Accelerometers

- GPS

All plug and play to standard bus

Changes reported to the underlying infrastructure


Blood Glucose Monitoring

Exploring medical devices that rely on self-reporting

Extends web based system developed by Oxford University and e-San Ltd

Off-the-shelf GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) mobile phone

Blood Glucose meter


Self Reporting Patient takes measurement

Measurement sent via mobile phone to remote infrastructure

Series of lifestyle questions asked as part of the clinical trial

Users promoted for compliance.

Current trial involves 100+ patients


Invisible interfaces

Inserting the chip

September 2005

Video: AIC Novel Interfaces



Smart Textiles – Wearable sensors Current Situation - Wearable sensors are usually

discrete sensors and electronic components attached to the fabric

Move to Functionalised Fabrics, e.g. lycra coated with conducting polymer

- can be used to functionalise discrete locations on a garment

- can sense stretch, bending, pressure, movements….

- Can pick up breathing, heart function

- Innocuous to the wearer

Project (with Prof. Gordon Wallace, Wollongong, Australia, and Prof. Alan MacDiarmid, UPENN) aims to produce all polymeric devices (electronics and sensing materials) From Rod Shepherd, NCSRFrom Rod Shepherd, NCSRFrom Rod Shepherd, NCSRFrom Rod Shepherd, NCSR


Exercise Shirt

Vmax 229 machine

Base Station

Logging Laptop

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Shallow Breathing

Deep Breathing

Normal Breathing


‘Wish to monitor underfoot pressure distribution during movement

Communication via Crossbow Mica 2 Dot

Advantage over previous methods: Simultaneous real-time measurements across a number of channels (up to 4)

Wireless data transfer between the mote which is sensor bound and the basestation

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• Useful for biomemedic studies e.g. technique during walking / running

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Shoe can be used to detect gait changes when performing different movement activities.

For e.g. the difference between the heel strike and front foot lift-off for walking and running is significant

Other movements can also be detected where movement may not occur but pressure under-foot is experienced


Pervasive Computing is about sensing

Every device and every artefact is now potentially a sensor

Information collected now dwarfs volumes on the web

Huge range of applications

These sensory inputs provide a context of use for applications which can drive information delivery and computation.

BUT - there is a ridiculously large amount of information to deliver and compute over

September 2005

Demonstration: Context can work



Summary of a Pervasive System

Pervasive Accessible everywhere in the environment

Embedded Appear in everyday devices

Nomadic Not tied to a location, can move with the user

Adaptable Change behaviour based on the users’ circumstances

Powerful and efficient Leverage computing power to provide services

Intentional Match their behaviour to the users’ tasks and intentions

Eternal No re-booting, no loss of service or data


A Systems Research View

A massive spectrum of research: from Ethnographic Studies, through programming models and systems infrastructure, to networked sensors

Each necessarily characterised by stunning point-examples of technology and problem solving.

Some toolkits are emerging, such as Smart-ITS, EQUIP, TRH, I-AM, SCINET, Context Toolkit,…

A challenge – to draw together these advances to provide coherent building blocks, frameworks and tools to build small or large scale Pervasive Systems.


Down to the detail

The big problem we address is

context


Distributed systems

Skeleton Stub

Middleware

Middleware hides locations, as far as possible The goal of location transparency has been assiduously

pursued

- The web, CORBA, e-mail, …

- Remove significance of – and usually any knowledge of – the (absolute or relative) locations of agents in a system

- Allow arbitrary interactions


But the world isn’t like that – 1

Networks – especially the Internet – aren’t flat: they have a distinctly non-trivial topology

- Firewalls etc introduce disconnectedness

- Objects’ semantics are critically dependent on their location

- …and in a smart space, location changes

This observation also underpins Cardelli and Gordon’s ambient calculus


But the world isn’t like that? – 2

Everything doesn’t happen everywhere

- Certain activities occur (at least preferentially) in particular locations

- People aren’t in two places at once

Task and space impose a certain degree of orderliness on events

- This happens after that, although not necessarily without interruption

- If I do this here and that there, I have to get from here to there

- The information and support I need while doing this may change when I start doing that

Not everything is allowed – or disallowed, for that matter

- Permission is a remarkably subtle concept

- Not everything that happens happens for a reason..


Relationships

B1

B2

B3 B4

B5 B1

B2

B3 B4

B5

A1

A2

A4 A3

Nocturnal Aviation Ltd Information gathering Personal smearing Money laundering

AA1

A2

A4

A3

Policy

External web

Intranet

“Only a person working for Nocturnal Aviation can see the intranet”


Synthesis

Each dimension of the system defines a particular part of its behaviour, with the dimensions inter-related

- A person’s location affects the tasks they may (preferentially) perform

- A person belongs to an organisation, and that affects the information they should be able to access

Many current systems hard-wire some of these dimensions together, weakening their capabilities

- If you’re off-site, you’re an enemy; if you acquire this information, you can keep it; if you’re in here, you belong

September 2005

Adaptive Information


Food for thought

“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, Xerox (1991)


Its Information Jim, but now as we know it…

QuickTime™ and a decompressor



Pervasive systems in context

Pervasive Accessible everywhere in the environment

Embedded Appear in everyday devices

Nomadic Not tied to a location, can move with the user

Adaptable Change behaviour based on the users’ circumstances

Powerful and efficient Leverage computing power to provide services

Intentional Match their behaviour to the users’ tasks and intentions

Eternal No re-booting, no loss of service or data


Adaptive Information


An outline software system – micro-level

Aggregate materials

Material

Device

Context

ApplicationProvide functions for the devices within the material

Material

Aggregate material states into device state, on- or off-material

DeviceManage connectivity within and between materials


Context

Application

An outline software system – macro

Device

Material

Context

As items move they may be included in the application’s view of the context

ApplicationDifferent applications project different views

Locate resources by searching to form groups of related items, that can be manipulated en masse

Integrate through a normal interface too, e.g. drag-n-drop information and functions from the desktop to a device


QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor


Adaptive Information Cluster

€9m SFI Multi-Disciplinary Research Cluster

- UCD & DCU

- Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs

- Environmental Protection Agency

- Ericsson

- IBM

6 Principal Investigators & over 60 Researchers

September 2005

Informatics


Information is critical

This new sensorised world with eternal memory changes everything!

A few hints of this change:- 10 Billion Web Documents

- 60 terabytes a day growth

- Climatologists predict 15 billion gigabytes of collected data by 2010

This exponential growth in information provides a set of new problems which will dominate scientific research in information and communication technology over the next twenty years.


From Computer Science to Informatics

Informatics is about the engineering of complex computational systems that are built on a strong theoretical foundation and that respond to real-world problems.

My view is that UCD provides an environment in which Informatics can flourish; where this separation between Economists and Engineers, Information Scientists and Physical Scientists is removed. An environment that does not exist in any institution internationally. More importantly an environment where truly new science is envisaged.


Integrated Informatics

Health In

formatics

Informatics

Conway Institute

EE&M Engineering

CSI Geary Institute

Physiotherapy & Performance

Science

Medical devices

Mathematical Science

Complex Systems

Clim

oto

log

y.Systems Biology

CONWAY NCSR / DCU

EE&M Engineering

DiagnosticImaging

Ima

gin

g &

Viz

CSI , EE&M, Maths, Conway InstituteArchitecture, Lanscape & Civil Eng


Conclusions

• A new era for computing (billions of devices, personalised interactions, ubiquitous data access, social interaction)

• This demands fundamental and applied research:

• on novel device technologies (building the computer of tomorrow)

• on computers systems research (building the Internet of tomorrow)

• on knowledge extraction and information delivery

• on privacy, trust and security.

• on human interaction with technology

• on social impact of this new world


Conclusions

The Systems Research Group is rapidly establishing a unqiue test environment for Adaptive Information research

Through the combination of SRG with NCSR, CDVP, and the Personalisation Group, the Adaptive Information Cluster now represents the largest grouping of Pervasive Computing Researchers in Europe.

Our vision of Informatics demands multi-disciplinary research

UCD is uniquely placed to develop realise this multi-displinary research capability

September 2005

Acknowledgements

This work is support by Science Foundation Ireland, the EU, Enterprise Ireland, IRCSET, Microsoft and IBM.

Professor Paddy NixonSchool of Computer Science and Informatics