Ubiquitous Computing: Potentials and Challenges

2013: The year of the Internet of Things; The Internet of Things probably already influences your life. And if it doesn’t, it soon will, say computer scientists; 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. Ubiquitous computing is essentially the term for human interaction with computers in virtually everything. Ubiquitous computing is roughly the opposite of virtual reality. Where virtual reality puts people inside a computer-generated world, ubiquitous computing forces the computer to live out here in the world with people. Virtual reality is primarily a horse power problem; ubiquitous computing is a very difficult integration of human factors, computer science, engineering, and social sciences. The approach: Activate the world. Provide hundreds of wireless computing devices per person per office, of all scales (from 1" displays to wall sized). This has required new work in operating systems, user interfaces, networks, wireless, displays, and many other areas. We call our work "ubiquitous computing". This is different from PDA's, dynabooks, or information at your fingertips. It is invisible; everywhere computing that does not live on a personal device of any sort, but is in the woodwork everywhere. The initial incarnation of ubiquitous computing was in the form of "tabs", "pads", and "boards" built at Xerox PARC, 1988-1994. Several papers describe this work, and there are web pages for the Tabs and for the Boards (which are a commercial product now): Ubiquitous computing will drastically reduce the cost of digital devices and tasks for the average consumer. With laborintensive components such as processors and hard drives stored in the remote data centers powering the cloud , and with pooled resources giving individual consumers the benefits of economies of scale, monthly fees similar to a cable bill for services that feed into a consumer’s phone

Communications of the ACM, 2009

Introduction The field of ubiquitous computing was inspired by Mark Weiser's vision of computing artifacts that disappear. "They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it." Although Weiser cautioned that achieving the vision of ubiquitous computing would require a new way of thinking about computers, that takes into account the natural human environment, to date no one has articulated this new way of thinking. Here, we address this gap, making the argument that ubiquitous computing artifacts need to be physically and cognitively available. We show what this means in practice, translating our conceptual findings into principles for design. Examples and a specific application scenario show how ubiquitous computing that depends on these principles is both physically and cognitively available, seamlessly supporting living. The term 'ubiquitous computing' has been used broadly to include pervasive or context-aware com...

2013

This paper provides a concise summary of pervasive computing and also the challenges faced in computer systems research posed by the emerging field of pervasive computing. This papper probes the relationship of this new field to its predecessors distributed systems and mobile c functionality need to be held apart, so that they can graciously evolve in a global computing infrastructure. Second, the applications must be able to acquire any resource they need at any time, so that they ca their services in a highly dynamic environment. Third, pervasive computing requires a common system platform, which allows the applications to run across the range of devices and to be automatically distributed and installed. This paper also discusses about the growing debate over privacy, safety and environmental implications. Finally the paper closes with a discussion of the research necessary to develop these capabili

International Journal of Computer Applications

Nowadays Wireless Communications are widely embedded in various ubiquitous computing models and applications. Ubiquitous computing is considered as a new technology paradigm that should be probed as one of Wireless Communications recent implementations. Ubiquitous computing, pervasive computing, everyware computing, ambient intelligence, haptic computing, and Internet of Things are all aliases to one technology where systems are available anywhere and anytime, to anyone, where and when needed. Practically, the differences between these terms is of an academic nature; they are commonly aiming to the goal of assisting people as well as the continuous improvement and promotion of economic and social processes by taking advantages of communicating with numerous microprocessors and sensors integrated into the environment. This article provides an overview of ubiquitous computing requirements and operational concept as well as pervasive services main characteristics. Consequently the key challenges facing the implementation and extension of ubiquitous computing as well as the main technologies used for this purpose are outlined. There are so many application domains that are adopting the ubiquitous computing concept; some of those will be presented. By the end of the research the author would like to give a good reference article that can help a lot of researchers interested in this field..

ACM SIGMOBILE Mobile Computing and Communications Review, 1993

Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications

This chapter gives a brief history of ubiquitous computing, highlights key issues, and assesses ubiquitous computing research and development under the broad categories of design architecture and systems, implementation challenges, and user issues. Using Singapore as a case example, the chapter then concludes with selected scenarios, presenting exciting possibilities in the future ubiquitous landscape.

… of the Association for …, 2004

Ubiquitous computing is considered as a promising technological path of innovation. Intensive R&D activities and political strategies are addressing the objective to foster mar- ketable technologies and applications. This article explores the state-of-the-art on the way towards the ‘‘Internet of things”. Which application fields have already proved their poten- tial for realising the vision and promises related to the new technology? What are the tech- nical, legal and social challenges that have to be addressed – and how can policy-makers contribute? We deal with these questions in the light of recent developments in research and business, illustrating the findings by examples in retail, logistics and health care. The article concludes that further efforts by all stakeholders from businesses, society and pol- itics are necessary to make ubiquitous computing applications economically sustainable and socially compatible in order to tap its full potential.

International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 2001