Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp)

Rawesak Tanawongsuwan
Human-Computer Interaction CS 6751 Fall 1997
Georgia Institute of Technology

Introduction

Ubiquitous computing is the third wave in computing. The first wave of computing, from 1940 to about 1980, was domi nated by many people (mostly scientists) serving one computer. Big mainframe is sitting in a room and shared by a lot of people. The second era, which we are in now and still peaking, has one person and one computer in uneasy symbiosis, They don't live together in more or less imitative association or even close union of two dissimilar parts. The third wave, which just starting, has many computers serving each person everywhere in the world. In the future, computers will inhabit the most trivial things: a car could remind its driver that the oil needs changing, a kitchen cup board could tell people living in a home when coffee is out. In such a world, we could not just interact with them, we need to live with them. Dwelling with computers means that they would have their proper places to stay and we co-exist happily and com fortably.

Ubiquitous computing blends computing capability into the periphery of our daily lives. It's considered as a tool not a focus, so we can get on with our true tasks we wish to accomplish. In another word, this technology should be non intrusive and should be as invisible and as integrated into the general ecology of the home or work place. For example, in 1935, people wanted to have an electricity light in their homes. In 1955, they wanted to put a TV and a telephone in their homes. Today, most people's homes have all these things and they sometimes forget that those technologies has evolved and blended into their every day's lives. In the years to come, the imbedded computers will bring other worlds to people in new forms. The new forms should be unobtrusive as we will not even notice our increased ability to informed action. Computers which we will ignore most of the time will provide us with constant cues about our environment. A future like this would help us on the problem about information overloaded. Instead of filing our minds with all sorts of things to remember, the things should remember for us.

The term `ubiquitous computing' is used because computers will be everywhere, embedded in the fabric of our lives. The `Things That Think' group at MIT phrases it succinctly: `In the past, shoes could stink. In the present, shoes can blink. In the future, shoes will think.' An example of a ubiquitous technology present today is liter acy. (Weiser 1991) "Consider writing, perhaps the first informa tion technology. The ability to represent spoken language symbolically for long-term storage freed information form the limits of individual memory. Today this technology is ubiquitous in industrialized countries." Words are displayed on every sur face and body part imaginable. They convey information to us automatically. We are not required active attention to read a street sign and it can guide us without undue effort on our part.

Ubiquitous computing is based on the notion that interaction should not be channel through a single computer or workstation, but rather through many devices, each of whose design and loca tion was tailored to support a particular task or set of tasks. Therefore those devices should be so commonplace and natural to use that they become almost invisible. For example, in an office, there would be tens or hundreds computers ranging from watch sized Tabs, notebook size Pads, to whiteboard sized Boards. Obviously, all would be connected to the wire or wire less network.

Pioneer

Mark Weiser at Xerox PARC is the originator of ubiquitous computing. In 1991, Weiser published an article that outlined a vision of the next generation of computation. He referred to this model as Ubiquitous computing or UbiComp. Current computing paradigm is his idea forces people to separate their machine life from the rest of their lives. Therefore, computers in their current form would never become a very significant or profound technol ogy. His notion about the best uses of a tool is when the tool requires less of the user's attention so that the user can devote their attention to the work being done. He gives an example about an amateur musician who needs to consciously think about every note and fingering, and a professional who knows the tools so well and so consciously that he can focus on the higher quali ties of the music being played.

Ubiquitous computing, at least in his idea, is not virtual reality. "Ubiquitous computing endeavors to integrate information dis plays into the everyday physical world. It considers the nuances of the real world to be wonderful, and aims only to augment them" (Weiser 1993). Rather than going or turning inward into an artificial world where computers try to simulate the real world, ubicomp encourages us to come out and look outward. It helps expand our perception and interaction in the physical world. It is sometimes discussed in the issues of virtual reality versus augmented reality. Augmented reality adds computations to a physical object or enhances human perception by adding information not normally experienced by the human senses. A group at UNC, for example, uses Computer-augmented Vision Technology to allow a doctor to see inside of a patient.

Ubicomp also is not like PDA's or the intimate agent computer that is built to respond to one's voice and work as a personal friend and assistant. Ubicomp is about a world full of connected devices with wire or wireless network. It has a characteristic that users do not have to carry anything with them. Information can be accessed anywhere through the devices that are primarily in the background where it may not even be noticed.

One important goal of ubiquitous computing as referred by Weiser is to implement calm technology, where computers do not cause stress, but enhance our lives and make many tasks easier. Eyeglasses are an example of calm technology. Eye glasses are used for many people to see the world more clearly, nonetheless they do not cause us distraction from what people are doing and often people forget about their existence. Like Donald A. Norman (Norman 1988), he believes that the best computer program is the one in which the computer `disappears' and the user seems to be working directly on the problem.

Weiser began research in 1988. He realizes that current sys tems infrastructure will not survive when it comes to the time to make computers so imbedded, so fitting, so natural, that we would use it without thinking about it. Weiser and his colleagues have been building versions of the infrastructure-to-come at Xerox PARC in the form of inch-, foot- and yard-sized comput ers. The first prototypes were Tabs, Pads, and Boards.

Tabs are similar to little electronic Post-it notes. They are intended to expand on the usefulness of existing inch-scale com puters such as the pocket calculator and organizer. One interest ing work that has been developed in this scale is active badges. Active Badge is a clip-on computer roughly the size of an employee I.D. card. These badges can identify themselves to receivers places throughout a building. Therefore this technology makes it possible to be an indoor positioning system.


Figure 1: Xerox PARCtab. (Photo: Xerox PARC)


Pads are like yellow pads, or scrap computers. They are meant to be used temporarily and then left for someone else. Pads dif fers from conventional portable computers in one crucial way. Whereas portable computers go everywhere with their owners, pads can just be grabbed and used anywhere without having indi vidualized identity.

Boards serve a number of purposes. They can be used as video screens, bulletin boards, or electronic white-boards, to allow group collaboration.


Figure 2: Xerox Liveboard and PARCpads (Photo: Xerox PARC)


True ubiquitous computing requires new kind of technology to make this paradigm shift to happen. The new technology must be cheap, low-power computers with convenient display device which come with software for ubiquitous applications and sup port a network that ties all devices together. Prices of computers drop every year while the computing power keeps increasing, so the first requirement will eventually be there. Display device has been developed and has reached the stage of producing flat screen panel. So there would be many output device that come in different sizes with high resolution. Software for supporting ubiquitous computing needs to be change substantially. Most software including operating systems are designed to be used in each specific type of machine and configuration. To serve many devices that can come and go in a room, we have to redesign the software can transfer input/output or communicate between devices in the embedded environment. UbiComp helped push in the development of networking. Since devices will eventually need to be on a network either wired or wireless, mobility of computers, methods of communication via mobile IP, and mobile application pose further challenges.

Technical Issues

Technical issues that need to be achieved in order to build Ubi comp involve at least three large issues. First, location services are necessary for computers to know where we are since the environment need to be aware of the existence of people. Loca tion services mean the ability to locate the positions of people or objects. The positioning system would have to deal with outdoor and indoor situations. Example of outdoor positioning system is Global Positioning Satellites (GPS). Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are space-based radio positioning systems that provide 24 hour three-dimensional position, velocity and time information to suitably equipped users anywhere on or near the surface of the Earth (and sometimes off the earth). One interesting indoor posi tioning system uses active badges. This system was first devel oped by The Olivetti & Oracle Research Laboratory. The active badge system provides a means of locating individuals within a building by determining the location of their active badges. This small device transmits a unique infra-red signal periodically. Each office inside the building is installed with networked sen sors which detect these transmissions. The location of the badge can then be determined from information obtained from these sensors.

Secondly, since ubicomp concept assumes the delivery of computation should be transparent, scalability issue then also plays important roles in ubicomp. Eventually, computers will need to be placed all over the places, so they can range from inch-scale (PDAs, PARCtab, Voice Recorders, smart phones, etc.), to foot-scale (notebooks, tablets, digital paper, etc.), to yard-scale (electronic whiteboards, plasma displays, smart bulle tin boards, etc.)

Third, networking will always be an issue in ubicomp environ ment. Every device need to be able to communicate to each other, upload and download information users need to know from anywhere. This means that we need fast, high capacity, and wired and wireless networking.

Another important point in making ubiquitous computing to work is having the environment (specifically computers) that can perceive or sense other objects and people not just the location, but also emotional stages, gestures, taste, smell, and speech. MIT's Media Laboratory has built smart rooms that incorporate systems for recognizing faces, expressions and gestures.

Since ubicomp is intended to embedded into people's lives, we should all be aware of the social issues that will gradually appear as this new wave of computing is taking place. One important concern is privacy. People can access their information from any where, so it might be possible for others to try to access your information. This sensitive issue will always be a case brought up to discuss. One argument for this point is that we can not expect technology alone to solve ethical dilemmas. Technology is a tool made by people to meet people's needs. Tools can be used in a profound way to fulfill people's dream and they can be used in unexpected ways causing bad consequences.

Conclusion

As we look to the future of ubiquitous computing, we will experience the excitement of overcoming the problem of infor mation overload. Much more information will be ready and easy to access from our fingertips. Until that time, new infrastructure needs to be investigated carefully, to make sure that it will really bring ubiquitous computing to the age of calm technology, when technology recedes into the background of our lives.

References