Things That Think: Ubiquitous Computing
D. Aditya A.Teja Swaroop Reddy
Computer Science and Engineering,
Engineering,
Malla Reddy institute of Technology & Science Malla Reddy Institute of Technology & Science
adityad89@gmail.com
Abstract
What is ubiquitous computing? An exciting new
approach to serving us with technology? A
difficult yet rewarding technical challenge? A
concern for privacy advocates? A good tool in
the right hands, and an oppressive one in other
hands? “Ubiquitous” literally means existing or
being everywhere specially at the same time”.
Hence ubiquitous computing, is the new era of
technology embedded in the environment yet
invisible, performing a wide range of tasks .
This paper primarily introduces the concept
ubiquitous computing and tries to answer
various inquisitions on the topic. As it is a
featured prospective many requirements and
challenges are to be met before we can really
make use the state of the art technology.
Therefore it is necessary to analyze numerous ad
hoc implementation mechanisms and also the
sophisticated requirements for implementation
of such sublime technology. It also discusses the
research work going on in this field which are
foundations for this technology.
1. Introduction
“The most profound technologies are those that
disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric
of everyday life until they are indistinguishable
from it.”
As quoted by Mark Weiser summarizes
the importance of Pervasive or Ubiquitous
Computing, which helps the user access to the
computational environment, everywhere at all
times and by means of any device. This is a
rapidly developing area focusing on the
integration of Information and Communication
Technologies into human environment and is
made possible with the growing connectivity &
computing devices which is gradually becoming
smaller and powerful. In Ubiquitous Computing,
Computer Science and
tejaalla369@gmail.com
entities like clothing, coffee mug, consumer
goods, car, human body etc can be embedded
with chips/devices executing intelligent
software. These devices range from a few
millimeters in size like sensors to several meters
like displays and are connected via wireless or
wired links to one another.
In the course of ordinary activities, someone
"using" ubiquitous computing engages many
computational devices and systems
simultaneously, and may not necessarily even be
aware that they are doing so. This model is
usually considered advancement from the
desktop paradigm. This paradigm is also
described as pervasive computing, ambient
intelligence. When primarily concerning the
objects involved, it is also physical computing,
the Internet of Things, haptic computing, and
things that think. Rather than propose a single
definition for ubiquitous computing and for these
related terms, taxonomy of properties for
ubiquitous computing has been proposed, from
which different kinds or flavors of ubiquitous
systems and applications can be described.
2. Evolution
Ubiquitous 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. Alan
Kay of Apple calls this "Third Paradigm"
computing.
In the past fifty years of computation
there have been two great trends in this
relationship: the mainframe relationship, and the
PC relationship. Today the Internet is carrying us
through an era of widespread distributed
computing towards the relationship of ubiquitous
computing, characterized by deeply imbedding
computation in the world. Ubiquitous computing The Internet brings together elements of the
will require a new approach to fitting technology mainframe era and the PC era. It is client-
to our lives, an approach we call "calm server computing on a massive scale, with
technology". web clients the PCs and web servers the
mainframes. Although transitional, the
The Major Trends in Computing
Internet is a massive phenomenon that
calls to our best inventors, our most
many people share a
Mainframe innovative financiers, and our largest
computer multinational corporations. Over the next
decade the results of the massive
one computer, one interconnection of personal, business, and
Personal Computer
person government information will create a new
field, a new medium, against which the
next great relationship will emerge.
Internet - Widespread
. . . transition to . . .
Distributed Computing
2.4. Phase –III the UbiComp

many computers The third wave of computing is that of

Ubiquitous Computing
share each of us
Table 1. The three eras
2.1. Phase-I the Mainframe Era
The first era we call "mainframe", to recall the
relationship people had with computers that were
mostly run by experts behind closed doors.
Anytime a computer is a scarce resource, and
must be negotiated and shared with others, our
relationship is that of the mainframe era. There is
mainframe computing today: a shared office PC,
and the great physical simulations of everything
from weather to virtual reality, have in common
sharing a scarce resource. If lots of people share
a computer, it is mainframe computing.
ubiquitous computing, whose cross-over
point with personal computing will be
around 2005-2020. The "UbiComp" era
will have lots of computers sharing each
of us. Some of these computers will be
the hundreds we may access in the course
of a few minutes of Internet browsing.
Others will be imbedded in walls, chairs,
clothing, light switches, cars - in
everything. UC is fundamentally
characterized by the connection of things
in the world with computation. This will
take place at a many scales, including the
microscopic.

2.2. Phase-II the PC Era

The second great trend is that of the personal

computer. In 1984 the number of people using
personal computers surpassed the number of
people using shared computers. The personal
computing relationship is personal, even
intimate. You have your computer, it contains
your stuff, and you interact directly and deeply
with it. When doing personal computing you are
occupied, you are not doing something else.
Some people name their PC - many people curse
or complain to their PC.
Figure 1. Major trends in computing
2.3. TRANSITION - THE INTERNET
AND DISTRIBUTED 3. Conceptual analysis
COMPUTING
At their core, all models of ubiquitous computing through micrometers to millimeters. See also
(also called pervasive computing) share a vision Smart dust.
of small, inexpensive, robust networked Skin: fabrics based upon light emitting and
processing devices, distributed at all scales conductive polymers, organic computer devices,
throughout everyday life and generally turned to can be formed into more flexible non-planar
distinctly common-place ends. For example, a display surfaces and products such as clothes and
domestic ubiquitous computing environment curtains, see OLED display. MEMS device can
might interconnect lighting and environmental also be painted onto various surfaces so that a
controls with personal biometric monitors woven variety of physical world structures can act as
into clothing so that illumination and heating networked surfaces of MEMS.
conditions in a room might be modulated,
continuously and imperceptibly. Another Clay: ensembles of MEMS can be formed into
common scenario posits refrigerators "aware" of arbitrary three dimensional shapes as artifacts
their suitably-tagged contents, able to both plan a resembling many different kinds of physical
variety of menus from the food actually on hand, object.
and warn users of stale or spoiled food.
Ubiquitous computing presents challenges across
computer science: in systems design and 5. The computer Science of UbiComp
engineering, in systems modeling, and in user
interface design. Contemporary human-computer In order to construct and deploy the components
interaction models, whether command-line, of a UbiComp certain well worked areas of
menu-driven, or GUI-based, are inappropriate existing computer science are to be address.
and inadequate to the ubiquitous case. This
suggests that the "natural" interaction paradigm
appropriate to a fully robust ubiquitous 5.1. Issues of hardware components
computing has yet to emerge - although there is
also recognition in the field that in many ways In addition to the new systems of tabs, pads, and
we are already living in an UbiComp world. boards, ubiquitous computing needs some
Contemporary devices that lend some support to new kinds of devices. Examples of three
this latter idea include mobile phones, digital new kinds of hardware devices are: very
audio players, radio-frequency identification low power computing, low-power high-
tags, GPS, and interactive whiteboards. bits/cubic-meter communication, and pen
devices.
4. Basic Forms
5.1.1Low Power
Mark Weiser proposed three basic forms for
ubiquitous system devices, see also Smart
device: tabs, pads and boards.
Tabs: wearable centimeter sized devices
Pads: hand-held decimeter-sized devices
Boards: meter sized interactive display devices.
These three forms proposed by Weiser are
characterized by being macro-sized, having a
planar form and on incorporating visual output
displays. If we relax each of these three
characteristics we can expand this range into a
much more diverse and potentially more useful
range of Ubiquitous Computing devices. Hence,
three additional forms for ubiquitous systems
have been proposed:
Dust: miniaturized devices can be without visual
output displays, e.g., Micro Electro-Mechanical
Systems (MEMS), ranging from nanometers
In general the need for high performance has
dominated the need for low power consumption
in processor design. However, recognizing the
new requirements of ubiquitous computing, a
number of people have begun work in using
additional chip area to reduce power rather than
to increase performance. One key approach is to
reduce the clocking frequency of their chips by
increasing pipelining or parallelism. Then, by
running the chips at reduced voltage, the effect is
a net reduction in power, because power falls off
as the square of the voltage while only about
twice the area is needed to run at half the clock
speed. This method of reducing power leads to
two new areas of chip design: circuits that will
run at low power, and architectures that sacrifice
area for power over performance. The second
requires some additional comment, because one
might suppose that one would simply design the
fastest possible chip, and then run it at reduced
clock and voltage.
5.1.2 Wireless
A wireless network capable of accommodating
hundreds of high speed devices for every
person is well beyond the commercial
wireless systems planned even ten years
out, which are aimed at one low speed
(64kbps or voice) device per person. Most
wireless work uses a figure of merit of
bits/sec x range, and seeks to increase this
product. We believe that a better figure of
merit is bits/sec/meter3. This figure of
merit causes the optimization of total
bandwidth throughout a three-
dimensional space, leading to design
points of very tiny cellular systems.
5.1.3 Pens
A third new hardware component is the pen for
very large displays. These requirements
are generated from the particular needs of
large displays in ubiquitous computing --
casual use, no training, naturalness,
multiple people at once. No existing pens
or touchpads could come close to these
requirements. Therefore members of the
Electronics and Imaging lab at PARC
devised a new infrared pen. A camera-
like device behind the screen senses the
pen position, and information about the
pen state (e.g. buttons) is modulated
along the IR beam. The pens need not
touch the screen, but can operate from
several feet away. Considerable DSP and
analog design work underlies making
these pens effective components of the
ubiquitous computing system.
5.2 Network Protocols
UbiComp changes the emphasis in networking in
at least four areas: wireless media access,
wide-bandwidth range, real-time
capabilities for multimedia over standard
networks, and packet routing.
A "media access" protocol provides
access to a physical medium. Common
media access methods in wired domains
are collision detection and token-passing.
These do not work unchanged in a
wireless domain because not every device
is assured of being able to hear every
other device (this is called the "hidden
terminal" problem). Furthermore, earlier
wireless work used assumptions of
complete autonomy, or a statically
configured network, while ubiquitous
computing requires a cellular topology,
with mobile devices frequently coming on
and off line. For this purpose a media
access protocol called MACA can be
used. The key idea of
MACA is for the two stations desiring to
communicate to first do a short
handshake of Request-To-Send-N-bytes
followed by Clear-To-Send-N-bytes. This
exchange allows all other stations to hear
that there is going to be traffic, and for
how long they should remain quiet.
Collisions, which are detected by
timeouts, occur only during the short RTS
packet. Adapting MACA for ubiquitous
computing use required considerable
attention to fairness and real-time
requirements. MACA (like the original
ethernet) requires stations whose packets
collide to backoff a random time and try
again. If all stations but one backoff, that
one can dominate the bandwidth. By
requiring all stations to adapt the backoff
parameter of their neighbors we create a
much fairer allocation of bandwidth.
Two other areas of networking research
with ubiquitous computing implications
are gigabit networks and real-time
protocols. Gigabit-per-second speeds are
important because of the increasing
number of medium speed devices
anticipated by ubiquitous computing, and
the growing importance of real-time
(multimedia) data. Real-
time protocols are a new area of focus in
packet-switched networks. Although real-
time delivery has always been important
in telephony, a few hundred milliseconds
never mattered in typical packet-switched
applications like telnet and file transfer.
With the ubiquitous use of packet-
switching, even for telephony using
ATM, the need for real-time capable
protocols has become urgent if the packet
networks are going to support multi-
media applications. The internet
routing protocol, IP, has been in use for
over ten years. However, neither it nor its
OSI equivalent, CLNP, provides
sufficient infrastructure for highly mobile
devices. Both interpret fields in the
network names of devices in order to
route packets to the device. For instance,
the "13" in IP name 13.2.0.45 is
interpreted to mean net 13, and network
routers anywhere in the world are
expected to know how to get a packet to
net 13, and all devices whose name starts
with 13 are expected to be on that
network. This assumption fails as soon as
a user of a net 13 mobile device takes her
device on a visit to net 36 (Stanford).
Changing the device name dynamically
depending on location is no solution:
higher level protocols like TCP assume
that underlying names won't change
during the life of a connection, and a
name change must be accompanied by
informing the entire network of the
change so that existing services can find
the device. A number of
solutions have been proposed to this
problem, among them Virtual IP from
Sony, and Mobile IP from Columbia
University. These solutions permit
existing IP networks to interoperate
transparently with roaming hosts. The key
idea of all approaches is to add a second
layer of IP address, the "real" address
indicating location, to the existing fixed
device address. Special routing nodes that
forward packets to the right real address,
and keep track of where this address is,
are required for all approaches. The
internet community has a working group
looking at standards for this area.
6. Challenges Of Ubiquitous
Computing
“As with most new technological advances,
obstacles are encountered and must be overcome
for them to succeed.” The Tabs, Pads, and
Boards developed at XEROX PARC are no
different. Ubiquitous computing, as Marc Weiser
said above, has a very difficult task. The name
alone implies computers everywhere, but in
order for success to be achieved, they must
dissolve into the background. To do this,
ubiquitous computing devices must overcome
six challenges:
• The “Accidentally” Smart Environment
• Impromptu Interoperability
• No Systems Administrator
• Social Implications of Aware Technologies
• Reliability
• Inference in the Presence of Ambiguity
6.1 The “Accidentally” Smart
Environment
If you walk into an environment anywhere in the
world, you would probably not find an
infrastructure suitable for ubiquitous computing
devices. Instead, you would find an
infrastructure suited towards established and
well-grounded technologies, such as electricity
running through the walls, phone lines running
into and out of buildings, and conveniences such
as indoor plumbing. You are not likely to see
newly constructed buildings equipped with
devices to support pervasive computing. Instead,
for these computing devices to succeed, the
environments of users must be “upgraded,” in a
word, to support this new technology. Users
must realize the potential these new devices have
and gradually, and somewhat “accidentally,”
integrate them into their environments.
6.2 Impromptu Interoperability
Ubiquitous computing, as its name implies, must
have devices everywhere. But who will make all
these devices. It surely won’t be left to a single
company or manufacturer? It would be an ever
whelming and daunting task, if not impossible,
to produce all the “desired” computing devices.
Thus, it must be a joint venture. However, this
presents one small problem. It is common
knowledge many technology-producing
companies desire to produce their own
proprietary products speaking their own
proprietary language. This leads to
“noninteroperability” between devices from
different companies, stunting the growth of
ubiquitous computing. Even if companies agreed
on a communication standard to further the new
computing age, we still may see stunted growth.
Even if two devices are able to communicate,
there is still the question of “How well they
communicate?” Take, for example, Linux and
Windows. They are both able to communicate
using the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol.
However, there are some administrative things
one must take care of before the two platforms
are able to communicate. Imagine, if you will,
these two operating systems able to “sense” the
presence of the other. The software
automatically configures itself for your particular
environment. In just a few seconds, you are able
to share files seamlessly between two very
different operating systems.
Ubiquitous computing must not just
have interoperable devices, they must have
impromptu interoperability – the ability to
interconnect and communicate with little or no
advance planning. This presents a problem
because every device must be written to
understand the software of every other device.
Again, a daunting task. Researchers at XEROX
PARC have begun a project called SpeakEasy
aimed as designing a set of interfaces that
leverage mobile code to extend the behavior of
entities in the environment.
6.3 No Systems Administrator
Challenge Two above ties in nicely with the next
test for ubiquitous computing to take root – lack
of a systems administrator. Most individuals who
operate a personal computer have no intimate
knowledge of how to administer a single
workstation. It would be unrealistic for the
manufacturers of ubiquitous computing devices
to expect their users to administer a complex
network consisting of multiple devices. How
does ubiquitous computing respond to this
challenge?
The response may be in an already existing
infrastructure – the telephone system. The
telephone system is unique in that it possesses a
“thin-client” alongside a robust and intelligent
network. When a user would like to use the
telephone system, they simply must pick up the
receiver (thin-client), and dial the appropriate
number to access the network. In this model, the
telephone company services the network while
the customer services the receiver. This model
allows any receiver to access the network. If an
event occurs where one particular receiver is not
capable of accessing the network, the user must
simply replace the receiver. However, the
troubleshooting for the telephone company is
much more complex. The simplest solution, as
outlined by Edwards and Grinter, is to provide
solutions for remote administration, diagnostics,
and upgrades. Yet, this opens another can of
worms. How is the telephone company going to
provide these remote administration services to
itself, but deny it to an unruly cracker
6.4 Social Implications of aware
technologies
Ubiquitous computing will have a social impact
on our society just as the previous two eras of
computing did – there is no question about that.
However, as these devices are constantly
bombarded with input from their surroundings,
the question then becomes what do the devices
do with this input? How will it affect privacy?
Will society turn to a social solution, legal
solution, ethical solution, or technological
solution to protect privacy?
Georgia Institute of Technology has
turned to a legal solution to protect its
inhabitants of the context aware house.
Guidelines have been drawn up that describe
who has access to the information gleamed from
the house, how it may be accessed, and if and
when it may be modified. The “house” also has
guidelines for making a visitor “invisible” to the
house through an opt-out option, as well as when
to make the house “take a nap” and shut off all
sensors and recordings. The guidelines also
cover how the captured data is to be stored
securely.
These guidelines are fine for a
controlled environment in a trusted party such as
the Georgia Institute of Technology. However,
what happens when ubiquitous computing is
available to the masses. How will an individual
know if they are within a “smart” environment
where embedded devices are gathering data? Is it
ethical to gather information from individuals
without their knowledge? What information may
be gathered? What information may not be
gathered? How may the information gathered be
used, by whom, and under what circumstances?
Is national security a priority for accessing data?
How about through a court order?
All of these questions relate to our privacy. And
all of these questions and many more, need to be
answered before ubiquitous computing takes
hold.
6.5 Reliability
Since ubiquitous computing devices will be
everywhere, it makes sense for them to be
reliable. Owners and developers will not want to
be constantly bombarded by failing devices or
insecure software. If you take a look at the
current age of computing and compare the
reliability issue of today to what the reliability
issue of tomorrow must be, the difference is
staggering. Today’s personal computers are, in a
sense, becoming more and more reliable.
However, they still have a long road ahead for
them to catch up with the reliability exhibited by
other well-founded technologies, such as
televisions, telephones and even washing
machines. These well-founded technologies have
been successful, in part, due to their reliability.
Edwards and Grinter believe the differences in
terms of reliability between personal computing
and these well-founded technologies lie in some
key differences :
1. Differences in development culture
2. Difference in technological approaches
3. Differences in expectations of the market
Perhaps the most recognizable issue related to
the reliability of well-founded embedded
technologies commences before the devices are
even assembled and shipped out to be put on the
market. The designers of these embedded
devices, (telephone, television, and washing
machine) are more focused on writing correct
code than most computer programmers. This
design trait could be attributed to the difficulty
associated with patching and upgrading theses
embedded devices once they are in the field and
in use. Yet, how often must systems
administrators patch and upgrade the software in
your personal computer? For ubiquitous
computing to become successful, the designers
must take a page from the design techniques of
existing technologies.
The technological approaches of
personal computing must also be studied before
moving into the third generation of computing.
Remember, if you will, challenge three above:
no systems administrator. One solution for this
challenge was to have a so-called thin-client on
the front-end and a robust and intelligent
network on the backend. One such example,
again, is the telephone system. The telephone
network model is, however, contrary to the
personal computing network model. In the
telephone network, the intelligence may be
found in the center of the network, away from
the edges and away from the thin-clients. In the
personal computing network, where workstations
connect to powerful servers through, essentially
“dumb” wires, the intelligence is found at the
edges. What this means is clients must be able to
support the workstations on their end. The
difficult design challenge will be to balance this
intelligence “between the edges and the center of
the network.” Another issue for designers to deal
with is how will tightly-integrated, fully-
connected devices work when dealing with a
failed device? Will one failed device bring the
whole ubiquitous computing network to its
knees? Or will the devices have integrated
reliable, redundant, and fail over systems ?
The third reason why embedded
systems are more reliable then computing
systems of today is due to one simple fact – they
are expected to be reliable. If a consumer were
required to constantly upgrade and patch their
telephone or television, these devices would
become a nuisance, and thus, be less successful.
On the other hand, however, personal computers
have developed into a reliably-unreliable device.
The expectation for PCs to crash and fail every
once in a while has been built into our perception
of how they operate. For ubiquitous computing
to evolve from personal computers, this
perception of unreliability must change.
Consumers will not like it one bit if every
ubiquitous computing device they own requires
them to upgrade, tweak, or tune for the device to
stay operate correctly .
Ubiquitous computing devices must be
reliable. This means designers of today’s
personal computers must analyze the design
issues, interoperability issues, and perception
issues that separate today’s reliable, embedded
technologies from today’s unreliable personal
computing devices.
6.6 Inference in the presence of
ambiguity
The role of ubiquitous computing must
completely change the role of computing as
offered by the personal computer. The personal
computing era saw the development and
proliferation of desktop computers. The
computer only did what it was told to do. If you
punched a key on the keyboard, the computer
processed that request. If you told the machine to
send an email, it would do it. With ubiquitous
computing, however, if a user needed to tell
every single device what to do, all the devices
would soon become a nuisance, and thus, and
hassle. Instead, ubiquitous computing devices
must be able to recognize changes in their
environment, infer the action needing, and either
complete the action or ask the user if they would
like the action completed.
This begs one question though? How smart must
these devices be to accomplish this task? If these
devices are to be able to make decisions on their
own based on an event, they must have a
substantial model of our world with which to
make decisions. These decisions will be based on
sensors able to view differences in our, and its,
environment over time. But our “analog”
environment, according to Edwards and Grinter,
“provide a great deal of ambiguity and
uncertainty of input.”
Edward and Grinter continue on to say
intelligence and decision making can show up in
a variety of forms. These forms are all different
and require a range of assumptions. Some
intelligence assumes very little, instead making
the decisions based on hard facts. Other
intelligence assumes very much. Take for
example a ubiquitous computing device that is
able to communicate with a base station,
providing its exact location in a building
instantaneously. This single device could be used
then, to locate an individual wherever they are in
the building. Thus, if the device is located in a
certain room, the base station may infer the
individual is also in that same room. However,
this inference may be incorrect. One may not be
able to infer everywhere the device is, the
associated individual is as well. Another
example lies with a computing device able to
infer a meeting is taking place. It assumes if a
certain number of people are located in a single
environment, a meeting may be taking place.
This device, then, may be programmed to infer
because a meeting is taking place, the minutes of
the meeting should be transcribed. Additionally,
the device may infer the minutes of the meeting
should be shared with others. These are what are
known as “phenomenological” problems. As
Edwards and Grinter so eloquently asked, “do
sensors reflect reality or merely the state of the
sensors?” In other words, how accurate are the
sensors at sensing reality?
In order for inference in the presence of
ambiguity to succeed, the inference made by
computing machinery must be predictable. In
other words, the systems behavior in the
presence of a certain condition is known, the
system’s facilities for detecting and inferring this
condition is known, and a provision for
overriding or canceling the systems behavior is
known. Take for example the thermostat in every
modern home in America. The thermostat senses
a rise in the temperature of its surroundings and
responds by turning on the central air
conditioning unit. The systems behavior is
predictable. The system’s facilities for detecting
and inferring this condition is predictable. And
finally, the system provides a mechanism for
overriding or resetting the system back to a
previous state. All three of these conditions must
be present to succeed in a context aware
environment.
All six of these challenges that face
ubiquitous computing span the realms of
technology, society, ethics, legality, and market-
place. And as all six of these challenges are met
over time, the course of ubiquitous computing
will unfold. But the question remains – how will
it unfold and where is it headed?
7. THE FUTURE OF UBIQUITOUS
COMPUTING
The future of ubiquitous computing is largely in
doubt. It is in doubt because we have yet to reach
the point where technological advances tip the
scales over societal skepticism, and we have
failed to meet the six challenges outlined above.
However, this does not mean the future of
ubiquitous computing has no future.
Indeed, pervasive computing is a hot topic for
research at major universities throughout North
America. The University of Calgary, University
of Washington, Georgia Institute of Technology,
University of California-San Diego, MIT
Stanford, and University of Illinois at Urbana
Champaign all have major projects under way to
further the advance of ubiquitous computing.
The goals of research being done at these
research institutions focus on human factors,
technology, and systems work.
8. Projects under development
8.1 Project Oxygen
At MIT, researchers are working on “Project
Oxygen” in hopes of designing a system that will
bring computing to be human-centric, instead of
computer-centric. The project believes
computation should be freely-available, much
like batteries, electrical outlets, and even the
oxygen we breathe. “Project Oxygen” utilizes a
device much like what XEROX PARC created
when they designed the Tab. Figure 3 below is a
diagram of these Tab-like devices, called H21’s.
H21’s function as a mobile access point and
accept speech and visual input, are capable of
using any one of the numerous communication
protocols, and can act as cellular phones, GPS,
pagers, cameras, and even personal digital
assistants. H21’s communicate with E21’s.
E21’s are a collection of embedded devices and
create areas of “intelligence” within an
environment. Users are able to communicate
within an intelligent environment through natural
means, such as speech and vision, “without
being aware of any particular point of
interaction”
Figure 2. Diagram of Project Oxygen’s H21
Aware Home Intitive
At Georgia Tech, researchers are studying the
effects on humans of a context aware home.
How will humans interact with embedded
computing in a home-like environment? A sub-
project based on activity recognition allows the
“house” to observe the general activities of the
occupants. The awareness includes such basic
tasks as reading a newspaper or watching TV, to
more complex activities such as preparing a
meal. Appliances with in the house are able to
recognize gestures and then translate them into
commands to execute. The Aware Home project
also considers the legal and social effects of
ubiquitous computing. Sensors are able to
monitor and record activity within every room of
the house, microphones are capable of recording
each and every sound emitted in the house, and
items are “tagged” and tracked through the use
of an infrared Communication system. In
response to this “invasion” in to a persons
privacy, Georgia Tech developed some
guidelines for privacy protection within a context
aware home.
As you can well see, ubiquitous
computing, although still in its infancy has a lot
to offer to users. However, before it becomes a
reality, the six challenges faced by ubiquitous
computing devices must be addressed.
9. Conclusion
As the era of personal computes comes to a close
and the era of ubiquitous computing emerges,
technologically advanced countries will enter a
brave new world. A world where computers are
everywhere, but rarely seen. Computing
machinery will be embedded to devices hidden
from view, while other computing devices will
seem so natural we will use them without
believing they are computers.
The advances that will be made will
create a new life style for human beings. It will
be a lifestyle where computers aid and assist us
in our daily lives. Even doing the most mundane
activity, such as looking up a telephone number,
may be accessed as easily as speaking a person’s
name. Sensors embedded in the environment
around us will make like simpler.
However, this is not at a price. While
the sensors are accumulating information from
the environment around us, it may also be
storing that information. Sensors will be able to
track our daily activities. This data may then be
used for a situation in which the individual does
not desire. In essence, the information being
gathered may be an invasion of their personal
privacy. Today, even with the limited automated
information gathering techniques, privacy is a
major concern for groups and individuals. It will
only become a larger issue as more and more
devices are developed aimed at automatic
information retrieval.
But before ubiquitous computing
“invades” our lives and brings privacy to the
forefront, it must face five other issues. These
five issues span the legal, technical, moral,
marketplace- realms that affect all of society.
Ubiquitous computing may be a ways into the
future, but we all know it is coming.
10. References

[1] www.mencl.us

[2] http://oxygen.lcs.mit.edu/

[3] http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser

[4] http://www.cc.gatech.edu

[5]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_computing

[6] http://www.ubicomp.in/

[7]
http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/majortrends

[8]www.ubiqcomputing.org/

[9]www.google.com/

[10]www.ubicc.org/