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Pervasive & Ubiquitous Computing

Hao Chu (朱浩華 )

Lecture #1

2/16/2004

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Outline

• Faculty Intro• Student Intro• What is Pervasive / Ubiquitous Computing?• Course Topics• Course Format• Course Projects• Grading

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Faculty Intro

• New assistant professor (8/1/2003)• Education:

– PhD (1999), Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

– BS (1994), Computer Science, Cornell University

• Previous Work Experience: – Xerox – Intel– NTT DoCoMo USA Labs

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Students Intro

• Please tell us about:– Grade level– Current (future) research area, interests, and faculty

advisor– Background (rating: good, fair, none)

• English (reading, writing, and speaking)• Programming skills (C/C++, Java)• Systems (OS or distributed)• Networking• User Interface• Vision

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Terminology

• What is pervasive & ubiquitous computing (ubicomp)?– Ubiquitous = 到處存在的 ;遍在的– Widespread computing, computing appearing and ha

ppening everywhere

• How to realize ubicomp?– Move beyond desktop computing.– Embed computing into everyday objects.– Integrate (seamlessly connecting) physical objects wit

h virtual environment.– Networking everyday objects.

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Toward Smart Everyday Objects

• Door can greet you by name upon entering.

• Wall can sense temperature, humidity, lighting, and adjust air conditioning, de-humidifier, lighting accordingly.

• Calendar can tell you meeting schedule.

• Pencils can record everything you write.

• Book shelf can tell you the location of the book/paper you need.

• Newspapers update news (according to your interests) every morning.

• Refrigerator can offer recipes and dietary recommendation.

• Clothes can show the latest fashion or monitor your physical/mental health.

• Medicine cabinet can remind you when to take medicines.

• Dresser can give you fashion advices.

• Washing machines and dryers adjust to washing & drying instructions on dirty clothes.

• Credit card will warn if you are spending too much money.

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Ubicomp is the Future …

• “The (Computing) World is not a desktop!” ... Mark Weiser

• Ubicomp is how computing will (should) be used:– in everyday activities – invisibly through embedding in the physical objects (requiring

little user attention)– to create smart, everyday objects through interconnections and

cooperation (with other smart objects)

“A billion people interacting with a million e-businesses through a trillion interconnected intelligent devices.” IBM Chairman (1993 ~ 2002) Lou Gerstner

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Related Fields of Ubicomp

• How does Ubicomp come about? (the evolution path)– Distributed Computing (PC + networks)

• Challenges: performance, scalability, server or network failures, open networks, performance,

– Mobile computing (Mobile devices + wireless networks)

• Challenges: resource-limitation, unpredictable network, power

– Ubicomp (Everyday objects + wireless networks)• Challenges: understanding user intention, heterogeneous

ubicomp environments, invisible user experience, more ..

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Course Topics (Tentative)

• Vision & challenges• Software

infrastructure • Sensors • Context-aware

computing• Security and privacy

• Human experience

• Ubiquitous data access

• Coping with uncertainty

• Social computing• Project Aura• Project Oxygen• (Wearable

Computing)

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Course Objective

• To prepare us (students and faculty) for research in ubicomp.

• (Try to) duplicate experience from similar courses taught at MIT, Stanford, CMU, and Georgia Tech.– Learning by reading papers

• Define problems & challenges• Understand state-of-art techniques & solutions• Identify limitations of state-of-art solutions

– Learning by doing projects• The project must have a research component.

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Collaborative Learning

• This is a research seminar course, so everyone (faculty and students) will contribute to the learning process.– Paper discussion– Paper presentation– Project presentation

• Ubicomp is a new, fast changing field, so faculty may not know all materials!

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(Unusual) Course Format

• Each lecture will discuss 4~5 papers on a specific topic.

• For each paper, – Presenter will write a summary of the paper– Presenter will give an overview of the paper for 20

minutes.– Everyone will join the discussion for 10 minutes.

• I will be the presenter for the papers in the first two lectures.

• Students will sign up for papers for presentation.

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How to read a paper?

• For each paper, try to answer the following questions:– What is the problem?– What is the current state-of-the-art?– What is the key make-a-difference (new) method and

technique?– What is good/bad/ugly about this make-a-difference

method? – What has actually been done?– What is the future work?

• (This may not apply to vision & challenges papers.)

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SWIFI

• We will setup a swifi website (collaborative website).– The assigned presenter must post presentation slides

and paper summary on swifi course page before the lecture starts.

– The assigned presenter will post a discussion summary on the swifi course page after the lecture ends.

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Next Week Reading

• Mark Weiser. "Some Computer Science Problems in Ubiquitous Computing." Communications of the ACM, July 1993.

• Mark Weiser. “Some computer science issues in ubiquitous computing.” Communications of the ACM, 36(7):75-85, July 1993.

• Mark Weiser, John S. Brown. "The Coming Age of Calm Technology." 1996.

• M. Satyanarayanan. "Fundamental Challenges in Mobile Computing", Fifteenth ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, May 1996.

• M. Satyanarayanan. “Pervasive Computing: Vision and Challenges”, In: IEEE Personal Communications. Carnegie Mellon University. (2001).

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Reading Sources

• See Goyal list from http://www.cs.utah.edu/~sgoyal/pervasive

• IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine (8 Issues)• ACM Ubicomp, ACM Mobisys, ACM Mobicom, ACM

Mobihoc, ACM Sensys, IEEE Percom, Pervasive, SOSP, etc.

• Can also be in any system & networking conferences, UI conferences, etc.

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Project Component

• Do a rapid prototype of an ubicomp application in one semester.

• Phase 1: project idea presentation– Fun, realizable within one semester time framework and

computing equipments, has a research component.

• Phase 2: project proposal document– Form teams, define goals, plan, and needed equipments.

• Phase 3: project working prototype and final report– Working prototype demonstration– Project report detailing motivation, objective, related work,

design, implementation, and evaluation.

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Project Ideas

• References:– Georgia Tech “Mobile & Ubiquitous Computing” (Gregory

Abowd)• http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/AY2003/cs7470_spring/

– MIT Pervasive Computing (Larry Rudolph)• http://www.cag.lcs.mit.edu/classes/6.898/projects.htm

– CMU “Mobile Computing Systems & Applications” (Satya)• http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~15-821/

– Stanford “Mobile and Wireless Networks & Applications” (Mary Baker)

• http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs444n/projects.html

• IEEE Pervasive Magazines– Education & Training articles by Scott F. Midkiff

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Project Idea (1) Library Navigation System

• It can guide a user to the shelf location of a book from a mobile device (shortest path to all books).– Indoor location estimation system

• It can help a librarian find misplaced books on bookshelves from a mobile device.– RFID tags on books

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Project Idea (2) Ubicomp Games

• Players’ physical context drives the games.– Players interact with the games and other players in both

physical and virtual spaces.– Physical world interactions are the “cool/innovative aspects”

(differs from PC-based games).• “Hide and Seek” (Nottingham):

– Runaways and policemen carry GPS-enabled cell phones in a city. Both can see their “approximate locations” on a city map. Policemen run around in a city to catch the runaways (caught if come within some small distance).

• “Ubicomp Doom” (MIT):– Game is projected on the wall.– No mouse and keyboard -> player’s physical movement moves

the virtual player.

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Project Idea (3) Location-based Publish & Subscribe System

s

• A user can use a mobile device to publish & subscribe location-based messages using a mixture of Ad-hoc, WLAN, and Cellular Networks.– The choice of network depends on attributes of

messages (priority, time, byte size, spatial size) and availability of networks.

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Project Idea (4) Classroom Mood Ring (GATech)

• Rings (worn by lecturer or/and audience) change color based on the mood of audience.– Provide hints to lecturer as to

whether audiences are bored, lost, etc. (without asking questions).

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Possible Gadgets & Equipments• HP IPAQ 5500 (Bluetooth + 802.11)• IPAQ Accessories

– Expansion pack, camera, memory card, GPS, GPRS, ..

• Sensors:– Light, tilt, temperature, accelerometer, etc.

• Philgets RFID kits• Berkeley Motes• Projector• 802.11 AP (ekahau.com SW location

estimation)• Use your imagination

– Anything you can find on the network or from your own lab …

– However, budget may be limited

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Project Result Dissemination

• Equipments & gadgets are expensive, so I am looking for corporate funding. In return for their $$$, companies may want to see– Reports made freely available to them & on the Internet– Working prototype demonstrations– Programming platforms may be restricted (e.g., MS)

• Anyone has a problem with this?• These equipments will be on-loan to students.

– You will return them to me in working conditions at the end of course.

– So be very careful with them!

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Grading (Tentative)

• Class Participation (30%)– Quality of paper presentation, paper

summary, and discussion.

• Project (70%)

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Course Requisites

• Class attendance (MUST!)– Please don’t register if you cannot wake up in the morning.

• Good programming skill• Some systems & networking background• Some creativity• Some research experience (if you are not my students)• Willing to spend extra time & efforts than what a regular

course would need• M1 and undergrads, please come & talk with me after

the class.

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Course Homepage(is not up yet.)

I will setup a link from my homepage

http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~hchu

(Click on course link)

Check on Wednesday

Watch for Course Announcements

Download papers

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Thank you