Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing

CS 7470 Spring 2001

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Access captured lecture notes, courtesy of Classroom 2000
Spring 2000 Ubicomp class
Spring 99 Ubicomp class

Instructor/TA

Dr. Thad E. Starner (Instructor)

Office: 378 CRB (GTRI building at 10th and Dalney)
Phone: (404) 385-0816
Email: cyborg@cc.gatech.edu
Office Hours:Weds. 12-1pm

Grading

Weekly assignments: 40%
Mid-term: 20%
Final Project: 30%
Class Participation: 10%

Syllabus

This syllabus is subject to change as the semester progresses. It is the student's responsibility to regularly check the syllabus for updates. The purpose of the syllabus is to announce the topic for various lectures as well as reading assignments that students are responsible for reading before the lecture.

Friday, Jan. 5
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Introduction - power, network, interface, and privacy
Monday, Jan. 8
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Power units - or, how long can you run your laptop on a jelly donut?
Wednesday, Jan. 10
- Reading: Starner and Johnson power papers
- Due:
- Lecture: Human power generation
Friday, Jan. 12
- Reading: Feynman and Martin papers
- Due:
- Lecture: Power storage and physical limits of computing
Monday, Jan. 15 - Class recess
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture:
Wednesday, Jan. 17
- Reading:
- Due:
  - Write a page on a new way of generating or storing power on the body. Include a mathematical analysis of the amount of power that is available and the amount that might reasonably be recovered for use by an on-body computer. Provide references. How can the system be made socially acceptable (i.e. provide a favorable trade-off between benefit and form factor, be designed as a fashion accessory, or made to disappear into common articles of clothing).
- Lecture: Capture and Access (Gregory Abowd)
Friday, Jan. 19
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Context (Gregory Abowd)
Monday, Jan. 22
- Reading: Starner heat paper, skim Martin batery paper
- Due: new assignment due Jan. 29
- Lecture: Wireless power and heat
Wednesday, Jan. 24
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: power
Friday, Jan. 26
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: heat
Monday, Jan. 29
- Reading:
  - Gemperle et al. wearability paper
- Due:
  - Write a page on a way of wirelessly distributing or scavenging power for very small computers in the environment. Include a mathematical analysis of the efficiency of the system. Provide references.
- Lecture: Human load; placement of computers; wearability
Wednesday, Jan. 31
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Emissions; FCC and UL certification
Friday, Feb. 2
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Human load/placement continue
Monday, Feb. 5
- Reading:
- Due:
  - Now that you are aware of various factors such as power use, generation, and storage; heat dissipation; load bearing; machine wear; and wearability, describe a wearable computer that you wish you could have and, given its desired functionality, where you would mount it on the body. Defend your decision in the terms we have used up to this point in the class. Be quantitative and provide supporting information/references where possible.
- Lecture: Privacy
Wednesday, Feb. 7
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Privacy and discussion of potential class projects
Friday, Feb. 9
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Presentation of class project ideas
Monday, Feb. 12
- Reading: Melzer chapter, Velger chapter, Spitzer ISWC paper, Minolta ISWC paper,
- Due: Describe how a particular ubiquitous computing device can be used to violate privacy. Be specific. Keep in mind the difference between security and privacy. You may describe how the security on the device (if any) can be broken, but that does not address how the user's (or group's) privacy is violated.
- Lecture: Displays for Ubiquitous Computing: Physiology of the eye and Head-Up displays
Wednesday, Feb. 14
- Reading:
- Due: Propose your mid-term project. What will you do? Why is it important? Prepare a timeline for completion. How will I evaluate it?
- Lecture: Displays for Ubiquitous Computing: HUD's continued
Friday, Feb. 16
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture:
Monday, Feb. 19
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Displays for Ubiquitous Computing: HUD's continued
Wednesday, Feb. 21
- Reading:
- Due: What is the maximum human discernable resolution of a focused head up display with apparent width and height of 1cm mounted 4cm in front of the eye. How bright would this display need to be to readable in daylight. What contrast ratio would it need to be equivalent at looking at newsprint in daylight? What is the minimal power such a display would need? What is the equivalent power needed for a backlit display on a Palm Pilot sized device?
- Lecture:
Friday, Feb. 23
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Text input on a mobile device (i.e. calculation of maximum speed of text input on Thad's cellular phone)
Monday, Feb. 26
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: HCI issues, resolution, brightness, and power consumption of head mounted and palm-carried displays
Wednesday, Feb. 28
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Pointing devices: GOMS, Buxton's 3 state model of pointing device, Norman's 7 stage model of interface, Fitt's Law, and the problems with pointing in wearable interfaces
Friday, Mar. 2
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Introduction to Augmented Reality, Gestures for control (implicit/explicit)
Monday, Mar. 5 - Class recess
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture:
Wednesday, Mar. 7 - Class recess
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture:
Friday, Mar. 9 - Class recess
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture:
Monday, Mar. 12
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Guest lecturer
Wednesday, Mar. 14
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Guest lecturer
Friday, Mar. 16
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture:
Monday, Mar. 19
- Reading:
- Due: Mid-term projects. Write-up should include:
  - Problem- What is the problem you are addressing?
  - References- What resources did you use? Who else has attempted similar concepts? How?
  - Method- What was your approach? How is it different than previous attempts?
  - Evaluation- How can I determine if you are on the right track? What went right? What went wrong?
  - Future Work- What would you do with more time/money?
- Lecture: Gesture Pendant and electronic books
Wednesday, Mar. 21
- Reading: Interacting with paper: Forget-me-not and DigitalDesk
- Due:
- Lecture: Mid-term projects
Friday, Mar. 23
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Mid-term projects
Monday, Mar. 26
- Reading:
- Due: Electronic book homework: Choose one of the following
  - Most OCR products try to recognize mathematical equations as text instead of retaining them as images. How would you create a system that could recognize equations on a page and segment them from the rest of the image to be recognized? Even better yet, implement it :-)
  - In the past researchers have claimed that adjusting the column width of a piece of text helps readers read faster (for example, newspaper columns versus book text). Find supporting references for this. Develop a system that allows a user to determine his optimal text width.
  - Taking this concept even further, a method called "rapid serial visual presentation" (RSVP) displays only a few words to the reader at a time, allowing the reader to fixate at a single spot on the screen as the words flash past. What is the fastest and average reading rates claimed by this method. Why is it supposed to be faster than normal reading? There used to be a GNU program called sview for this method. Find it, or another similar program, and try it out. Discuss your experience.
  - Backward compatibility: In general users of electronic books and wearable computers will have problems with resources being available only on paper. Often it is inconvenient to scan a book or paper by the large automatic scanners, especially when the user is mobile. Describe a system that could help manage the problem of a mixed paper and electronic book environment.
- Lecture: Guest Lecturer Aaron Bobick
Wednesday, Mar. 28
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Guest Lecturer Cory Kidd
Friday, Mar. 30
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Guest Lecturer Gregory Abowd
Monday, Apr. 2
- Reading: Bush's Memex, Licklider's Man-Machine Symbiosis, Thorp's Invention of the First Wearable Computer
- Due:
- Lecture: history of wearable computing
Wednesday, Apr. 4
- Reading: Weiser, Englebart, Rheingold, rest of history section
- Due:
- Lecture: history of ubiquitous computing
Friday, Apr. 6
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: history continued, remaining project presentations
Monday, Apr. 9
- Reading:Carvey, Toh
- Due: Speculate on what advances would have been made if we, as a society, had concentrated on making small, personal machines, like Thorp and Shannon's wearable, instead of mainframes.
- Lecture: Project help, Networking concepts
Wednesday, Apr. 11
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Attend Margineantu lecture on classifiers based on cost functions.
Friday, Apr. 13
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Wireless networking
Monday, Apr. 16
- Reading:
- Due: Final project proposal/status (same format as mid-project).
- Lecture: Wireless networking continued.
Wednesday, Apr. 18
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Wireless networking continued.
Friday, Apr. 20
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Software engineering issues
Monday, Apr. 23
- Reading: Abowd Software Engineering Issues for Ubiquitous Computing; Abowd and Mynatt Charting Past, Present, and Future Research in Ubiquitous Computing
- Due: Describe the problems of implementing an automobile-based Internet repeater system for wearable computer users. How might these problems be overcome. (I expect detail and thought).
- Lecture: Wearable applications
Wednesday, Apr. 25
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Software Engineering issues continued
Friday, Apr. 27
- Reading:
- Due:
- Lecture: Project presentations