Deploying Pervasive Technologies

Author(s):  
Juan-Carlos Cano ◽  
Carlos Tavares Calafate ◽  
Jose Cano ◽  
Pietro Manzoni

Communication technologies are currently addressing our daily lives. Internet, fixed-line networks, wireless networks, and sensor technologies are converging, and seamless communication is expected to become widely available. Meanwhile, the miniaturization of devices and the rapid proliferation of handheld devices have paved the path towards pervasive computing and ubiquitous scenarios. The term ubiquitous and pervasive computing refers to making many computing devices available throughout the physical environment, while making them effectively invisible to the user (Weiser, 1991). Thanks to advances in the devices’ processing power, extended battery life, and the proliferation of mobile computing services, the realization of ubiquitous computing has become more apparent, being a major motivation for developing location and context-aware information delivery systems. Strongly related to ubiquitous computing is context-aware computing. In context-aware computing, the applications may change or adapt their functions, information, and user interface depending on the context and the client’s profile (Weiser, 1993). Many research centers and industries are actively working on the issues of context-awareness or more generally on ubiquitous computing (Baldauf, Dustdar, & Rosenberg, 2007). In particular, several proposals focus on smart spaces and intelligent environments (Harter, Hopper, Steggeles, Ward, & Webster, 1999; Kindberg et al., 2002; Smart-its, 2007), where it is expected that smart devices all around us will maintain updated information about their locations, the contexts in which they are being used, and relevant data about the users. Clearly, contextual services represent a milestone in today’s mobile computing paradigm, providing timely information anytime, anywhere. Nevertheless, there are still few examples of pervasive computing environments moving out from academic laboratories into our everyday lives. This occurs since pervasive technologies are still premature, and also because it is hard to define what a real pervasive system should be like. Moreover, despite the wide range of services and potential smart applications that can benefit from using such systems, there is still no clear insight about a realistic killer application.

Author(s):  
Juan-Carlos Cano ◽  
Carlos Tavares Calafate ◽  
Jose Cano ◽  
Pietro Manzoni

Communication technologies are currently addressing our daily lives. Internet, fixed-line networks, wireless networks, and sensor technologies are converging, and seamless communication is expected to become widely available. Meanwhile, the miniaturization of devices and the rapid proliferation of handheld devices have paved the path towards pervasive computing and ubiquitous scenarios. The term ubiquitous and pervasive computing refers to making many computing devices available throughout the physical environment, while making them effectively invisible to the user (Weiser, 1991). Thanks to advances in the devices’ processing power, extended battery life, and the proliferation of mobile computing services, the realization of ubiquitous computing has become more apparent, being a major motivation for developing location and context-aware information delivery systems.


Author(s):  
Teddy Mantoro ◽  
Media Ayu

Context-aware computing is a class of mobile computing that can sense its physical environment and adapt its behavior accordingly; it is a component of the ubiquitous or pervasive computing environment that has become apparent with innovations and challenges. This chapter reviews the concept of context-aware computing, with focus on the user activities that benefit from context history. How user activities in the smart environment can make use of context histories in applications that apply the concept of context prediction integrated with user pro-activity is explored. A brief summary of areas which benefit from these technologies as well as corresponding issues are also investigated.


Author(s):  
Jorge Barbosa ◽  
Fabiane Dillenburg ◽  
Alex Garzão ◽  
Gustavo Lermen ◽  
Cristiano Costa

Mobile computing is been driven by the proliferation of portable devices and wireless communication. Potentially, in the mobile computing scenario, the users can move in different environments and the applications can automatically explore their surroundings. This kind of context-aware application is emerging, but is not yet widely disseminated. Based on perceived context, the application can modify its behavior. This process, in which software modifies itself according to sensed data, is named Adaptation. This constitutes the core of Ubiquitous Computing. The ubiquitous computing scenario brings many new problems such as coping with the limited processing power of mobile devices, frequent disconnections, the migration of code and tasks between heterogeneous devices, and others. Current practical approaches to the ubiquitous computing problem usually rely upon traditional computing paradigms conceived back when distributed applications where not a concern. Holoparadigm (in short Holo) was proposed as a model to support the development of distributed systems. Based on Holo concepts, a new programming language called HoloLanguage (in short, HoloL) was created. In this chapter, we propose the use of Holo for developing and executing ubiquitous applications. We explore the HoloL for ubiquitous programming and propose a full platform to develop and execute Holo programs. The language supports mobility, adaptation, and context awareness. The execution environment is based on a virtual machine that implements the concepts proposed by Holo. The environment supports distribution and strong code mobility.


Author(s):  
Anind K. Dey ◽  
Jonna Häkkilä

Context-awareness is a maturing area within the field of ubiquitous computing. It is particularly relevant to the growing sub-field of mobile computing as a user’s context changes more rapidly when a user is mobile, and interacts with more devices and people in a greater number of locations. In this chapter, we present a definition of context and context-awareness and describe its importance to human-computer interaction and mobile computing. We describe some of the difficulties in building context-aware applications and the solutions that have arisen to address these. Despite these solutions, users have difficulties in using and adopting mobile context-aware applications. We discuss these difficulties and present a set of eight design guidelines that can aid application designers in producing more usable and useful mobile context-aware applications.


2009 ◽  
pp. 3222-3235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anind K. Dey ◽  
Jonna Häkkilä

Context-awareness is a maturing area within the field of ubiquitous computing. It is particularly relevant to the growing sub-field of mobile computing as a user’s context changes more rapidly when a user is mobile, and interacts with more devices and people in a greater number of locations. In this chapter, we present a definition of context and context-awareness and describe its importance to human-computer interaction and mobile computing. We describe some of the dif- ficulties in building context-aware applications and the solutions that have arisen to address these. Despite these solutions, users have difficulties in using and adopting mobile context-aware applications. We discuss these difficulties and present a set of eight design guidelines that can aid application designers in producing more usable and useful mobile context-aware applications.


Author(s):  
Fredrik Svahn ◽  
Ola Henfridsson

A central feature of ubiquitous computing applications is their capability to automatically react on context changes so as to support users in their mobility. Such context awareness relies on models of specific use contexts, embedded in ubiquitous computing environments. However, since most such models are based merely on location and identity parameters, context-aware applications seldom cater for users’ situated knowledge and experience of specific contexts. This is a general user problem in well-known, but yet dynamic, user environments. Drawing on a sequential multimethod study of in-car navigation, this paper explores the role of situated knowledge in designing and using context-aware applications. This focus is motivated by the current lack of empirical investigations of context-aware applications in actual use settings. In-car navigation systems are a type of context-aware application that includes a set of contextual parameters for supporting route guidance in a volatile context. The paper outlines a number of theoretical and practical implications for context-aware application design and use.


Author(s):  
S. Soleimani ◽  
E. Keshtehgar ◽  
M. R. Malek

In this paper, we study how mobile computing and wireless technologies can be explored to provide effective ubiquitous GIS services. Instead of reinventing the wheels, we make use of smartphones, off-the-shelf components, and existing technologies in ubiquitous computing (i.e. wireless and mobile positioning technologies, and data acquisition techniques and processing via sensors) to develop a middleware, and tools for the development of systems and applications to provide effective ubiquitous GIS services. Two main tasks to be studied are: 1) Developing a framework, called UbiSound, to provide the infrastructure and architectural support for realizing ubiquitous GIS services; and 2) Designing and developing ubiquitous GIS applications by utilizing the UbiSound framework to let users experience and benefit from the context aware services. We use scenario to illustrate how mobile/wireless and sensor technologies can enable ubiquitous GIS services in UbiSound. Some of the examples included in UbiSound are: Noise mapping, soundscape mapping and wellbeing data acquisition and analysis.


Author(s):  
Thyagaraju G.S. ◽  
U.P. Kulkarni

Conflict resolution in context-aware computing is getting more significant attention from researchers as pervasive/ubiquitous computing environments take into account multiple users and multiple applications. In multi-user ubiquitous computing environments, conflicts among user’s contexts need to be detected and resolved. Conflicts arise when multiple users try to access or try to have a control on an application. In this paper, the authors propose a series of algorithms to resolve conflict which can be embedded in different context aware applications like context aware devices (say TV, Mobile, AC, and Fan) and Context Aware Ambient (like Meeting Room, Living Room, Restaurant, Coffee Shop, etc.). The algorithms discussed in this paper make use of different tools like Probability, Fuzzy Logic, Bayesian Network and Rough set theory. In addition the algorithms utilize various factors like social, personal and environmental. The motto of this paper is to enable context aware applications to offer socialized and personalized services to multiple users by resolving service conflicts among users.


Author(s):  
Wen-Chen Hu

Mobile users interact with mobile commerce applications by using small wireless Internet-enabled devices, which come with several aliases such as handhelds, palms, PDAs, pocket PCs, and smartphones. To avoid any ambiguity, a general term, mobile handheld devices, is used in this book. A mobile handheld device is small enough to be held in one hand and is a general-purpose, programmable, battery-powered computer, but it is different from a desktop PC or notebook due to the following three special features: • Limited network bandwidth: This limitation prevents the display of most multimedia on a microbrowser. Though the Wi-Fi and 3G networks go some way toward addressing this problem, the wireless bandwidth is always far below the bandwidth of wired networks. • Small screen/body size: This feature restricts most handheld devices to using a stylus for input. • Mobility: The high mobility of handheld devices is an obvious feature that separates handheld devices from PCs. This feature also makes possible many new applications such as mobile recommendations that normally cannot be done by PCs. Short battery life and limited memory, processing power, and functionality are additional features that impose limitations on handheld devices, but these problems are gradually being solved as the technologies improve and new methods are constantly being introduced. Figure 3.1 shows a typical system structure for handheld devices, which includes six major components: (i) a mobile operating system, (ii) a mobile central processing unit, (iii) a microbrowser, (iv) input and output devices and methods, (v) memory and storage, and (vi) batteries. Brief descriptions of each of these components are given below, followed by a more detailed description in the main body of the chapter.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 135-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Fongen ◽  
Christian Larsen ◽  
Gheorghita Ghinea ◽  
Simon J. E. Taylor ◽  
Tacha Serif

Location based or ”context aware” computing is becoming increasingly recognized as a vital part of a mobile computing environment. As a consequence, the need for location-management middleware is widely recognized and actively researched. Location-management is frequently offered to the application through a “location API” (e.g. JSR 179) where the mobile unit can find out its own location as coordinates or as “building, floor, room” values. It is then up to the application to map the coordinates into a set of localized variables, e.g. direction to the nearest bookshop or the local timezone. It is the opinion of the authors that a localization API should be more transparent and more integrated: The localized values should be handed to the application directly, and the API for doing so should be the same as the general storage mechanisms. Our proposed middleware for location and context management is built on top of Mobispace. Mobispace is a distributed tuplespace made for mobile units (J2me) where replication between local replicas takes place with a central server (over GPRS) or with other mobile units (using Bluetooth). Since a Bluetooth connection indicates physical proximity to another node, a set of stationary nodes may distribute locality information over Bluetooth connections, and this information may be retrieved through the ordinary tuplespace API. Besides the integration with the general framework for communication and coordination the middleware offers straightforward answers to questions like:Where is node X located? Which nodes are near me? What is the trace of node Y?


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