Distributing identity [symmetry breaking distributed accessprotocols]

In the next few years, computational, sensory, and communication capabilities will diffuse out of their present home in beige boxes on desktops and into everyday objects such as furniture, clothing, and other non-technological objects. As the cost of electronics continues to drop, the number of activated, networked devices will grow rapidly. Each device sharing a particular multiaccess channel will need a unique identifier for that channel. Present communication protocols such as Ethernet specify that the manufacturers must coordinate with one another in order to avoid assigning the same ID twice. The article explores methods by which the devices could coordinate with one another to manage ID assignment dynamically and automatically. In particular, the article is an investigation of distributed protocols that utilize physical sources of symmetry breaking to enable a network of initially identical units to acquire the unique identities required for point-to-point communication over a shared resource such as a bus or common RF band. It presents several protocols, compares their resource use (time, random bits, space, communication), and notes a trade-off among these measures of algorithm complexity     

An object-based middleware supporting efficient interoperability on a smart home network

This paper proposes a novel object-based home network middleware for supporting the interoperability among home devices and smart grid devices. This middleware provides various types of abstract objects for flexible representation of heterogeneous home devices, which are classified based on their characteristics. It is also flexible enough to allow addition of new protocols and message conversion between different protocols through an abstraction layer, which are not supported by existing home network middlewares so that various protocols can be supported. As a result, it can be utilized to provide the interoperability among a variety of devices from sensors to typical home appliances as well as smart grid devices such as a home electric generator and a battery, which adopt different protocols. In order to demonstrate that home devices and smart grid devices are interoperable through the proposed middleware, we implement applications based on the middleware on a target platform consisting of embedded boards, sensors and laptops for emulation purposes of a home network. According to our emulation, this middleware can provide efficient interoperability among home devices and smart grid devices for future energy efficient home.     

A near field communication-driven home automation framework

Rapid advances in the field of consumer electronic devices have made home automation a research issue of increasing importance. In recent years, one of the most popular and widely used devices in certain consumer electronic applications has been RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and of particular interest here is Near Field Communication (NFC), a two-way communication technology based on RFID. A setup that has a NFC device embedded in a cellular phone has attracted growing attention for various business applications, among them payments and ticketing. In this paper, we propose a novel application and framework that uses a NFC phone to create a personalized digital home environment. With this proposed setup, by one touch the NFC phone is used to send a request that carries predefined personal preferences to control various home appliances. We present the system architecture and implement the prototype, employing such well-known standards as NFC, OSGi, and UPnP to demonstrate the feasibility of the framework. We then evaluate the performance for efficiency and discuss the merits of the approach.     

A Web-based nomadic computing system

CoolTown offers a Web model for supporting nomadic users, based on the convergence of Web technology, wireless networks and portable devices. This paper describes how CoolTown ties Web resources to physical objects and places, and how users interact with resources using the information appliances they carry, from laptops to smart watches. Enabling the automatic discovery of URLs from our physical surroundings, and using localized Web servers for directories, we create location-aware but ubiquitous systems. On top of this infrastructure we leverage device connectivity to support communication services.     

Data Management in Networks: Experimental Evaluation of a Provably Good Strategy

This paper deals with data management for parallel and distributed systems. We present the DIVA (Distributed Variables ) library that provides direct access to shared data objects from each node in a network. The current implementations are based on mesh-connected massively parallel computers. Our algorithms dynamically create and discard copies of the data objects in order to reduce the communication overhead. We use a non-standard approach based on a randomized but locality preserving embedding of ``access trees' into the network. The access tree strategy was previously analyzed only in a theoretical model. A competitive analysis proved that the strategy minimizes the network congestion up to small factors. In this paper the access tree strategy is evaluated experimentally. We test several variations of this strategy on three different applications of parallel computing, namely matrix multiplication, bitonic sorting, and Barnes—Hut N -body simulation. We compare the access tree strategy with a standard caching strategy using a fixed home for each data object. Our experiments show that the access tree strategy outperforms the fixed home strategy clearly as it avoids network congestion. Furthermore, we do comparisons with hand-optimized message passing strategies. In fact, we observe that the access tree strategy comes reasonably close to the performance of the hand-optimized message passing strategies while the fixed home strategy performs poorly. Received in final form October 8, 2001. Online publication March 25, 2002.     

Consistent Modelling of Users, Devices and Sensors in a Ubiquitous Computing Environment

This paper describes the use of an accretion-resolution user modelling representation to model people, places and objects. We explain the motivation for the key properties of the representation, especially those of particular importance for ubiquitous computing: firstly, for flexibility in interpreting the typically noisy and potentially conflicting evidence about users’ locations; secondly, to support users in scrutinising their user model, the processes that determine its contents and the way that it is used in the ubiquitous computing environment. A novel and important aspect of this work is our extension of the representation beyond modelling just users, using it also to represent the other elements such as devices, sensors, rooms and buildings. We illustrate our approach in terms of models we have been building for a system which enables users to gain personalised information about the sensors and services in a ubiquitous computing environment. We report experiments on the scalability and the management of inconsistency in modelling of location, based on accretion-resolution     

VR interactive dialog system with verbal and nonverbal communication

We have constructed a dialog environment between a human and a virtual agent. With commercial off-the-shelf VR technologies, special devices such as a data glove have to be used for the interaction, but it is difficult for anyone to manipulate objects on their own. If there is a helper who has direct access to objects in virtual space, we may ask them. The question, however, is how to communicate with the helper. The basic idea is to utilize speech and gesture recognition systems. We have already reported the above-mentioned result, although only the avatar can move a virtual object in the current system. The user cannot freely manipulate virtual objects. Therefore, in a new attempt, we constructed a communication channel between virtual space and the real world so that the virtual object could be manipulated. In order to develop the new system, we extended the existing system to an internet meeting system allowing users in different places to interact with each other by voice and by a pointing action with a finger. This work was presented in part and awarded as Young Author Award at the 13th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 31–February 2, 2008     

A middleware to integrate robots,simple devices and everyday objects into an ambient ecology

The fields of ambient intelligence, distributed robotics and wireless sensor networks are converging toward a common vision, in which ubiquitous sensing and acting devices cooperate to provide useful services in the home. These devices can range from sophisticated mobile robots to simple sensor nodes and even simpler tagged everyday objects. In this vision, a milkbox left on the table after the user has left the home could ask the service of a mobile robot to be placed back in the refrigerator. A missing ingredient to realize this vision is a mechanism that enables the communication and interoperation among such highly heterogeneous entities. In this paper, we propose such a mechanism in the form of a middleware able to integrate robots, tiny devices and augmented everyday objects into one and the same system. The key moves to cope with heterogeneity are: the definition of a tiny, compatible version of the middleware, that can run on small devices; and the concept of object proxy, used to make everyday object accessible within the middleware. We describe the concepts and implementation of our middleware, and show a number of experiments that illustrate its performance.     

A Flexible Content Adaptation System Using a Rule-Based Approach

Content adaptation is an important technique for mobile devices. Existing content adaptation systems have been developed with specific adaptation goals. In this paper, we present an extensible content adaptation system, Xadaptor. We take a rule-based approach to facilitate extensible, systematic, and adaptive content adaptation. It integrates adaptation mechanisms for various content types and organizes them into the rule base. Rules are invoked based on the individual client information. We classify HTML page objects into structure, content, and pointer objects. Existing content adaptation techniques mainly focus on content objects and do not consider adaptation for structure and pointer objects. In Xadaptor, novel adaptation techniques for the structure object HTML table have been developed. We use fuzzy logic to model the adaptation quality and guide the adaptation decision. To demonstrate the feasibility of our approach, we have implemented a prototype system. Experimental studies show that Xadaptor is capable of on-the-fly content adaptation and is easily extensible     

Geometry-dependent lighting

In this paper, we introduce geometry-dependent lighting that allows lighting parameters to be defined independently and possibly discrepantly over an object or scene based on the local geometry. We present and discuss light collages, a lighting design system with geometry-dependent lights for effective feature-enhanced visualization. Our algorithm segments the objects into local surface patches and places lights that are locally consistent but globally discrepant to enhance the perception of shape. We use spherical harmonics for efficiently storing and computing light placement and assignment. We also outline a method to find the minimal number of light sources sufficient to illuminate an object well with our globally discrepant lighting approach.     

Multi-Modal Interaction of Human and Home Robot in the Context of Room Map Generation

In robotics, the idea of human and robot interaction is receiving a lot of attention lately. In this paper, we describe a multi-modal system for generating a map of the environment through interaction of a human and home robot. This system enables people to teach a newcomer robot different attributes of objects and places in the room through speech commands and hand gestures. The robot learns about size, position, and topological relations between objects, and produces a map of the room based on knowledge learned through communication with the human. The developed system consists of several sections including: natural language processing, posture recognition, object localization and map generation. This system combines multiple sources of information and model matching to detect and track a human hand so that the user can point toward an object of interest and guide the robot to either go near it or to locate that object's position in the room. The positions of objects in the room are located by monocular camera vision and depth from focus method.     

Configuring and controlling ubiquitous computing infrastructure with semantic connections: a tangible and an AR approach

In the transition from a device-oriented paradigm toward a more task-oriented paradigm with increased interoperability, people are struggling with inappropriate user interfaces, competing standards, technical incompatibilities, and other difficulties. The current handles for users to explore, make, and break connections between devices seem to disappear in overly complex menu structures displayed on small screens. This paper tackles the problem of establishing connections between devices in a smart home environment, by introducing an interaction model that we call semantic connections. Two prototypes are demonstrated that introduce both a tangible and an augmented reality approach toward exploring, making, and breaking connections. In the augmented reality approach, connections between real-world objects are visualized by displaying visible lines and icons from a mobile device containing a pico projector. In the tangible approach, objects in the environment are tagged and can be scanned and interacted with, to explore connection possibilities, and manipulate the connections. We discuss the technical implementation of a pilot study setup used to evaluate both our interaction approaches. We conclude the paper with the results of a user study that shows how the interaction approaches influence the mental models users construct after interacting with our setup.     

BroadScale: Efficient scaling of heterogeneous storage systems

Scalable storage architectures enable digital libraries and archives for the addition or removal of storage devices to increase storage capacity and bandwidth or retire older devices. Past work in this area have mainly focused on statically scaling homogeneous storage devices. However, heterogeneous devices are quickly being adopted for storage scaling since they are usually faster, larger, more widely available, and more cost-effective. We propose BroadScale, an algorithm based on Random Disk Labeling, to dynamically scale heterogeneous storage systems by distributing data objects according to their device weights. Assuming a random placement of objects across a group of heterogeneous storage devices, our optimization objectives when scaling are to ensure a uniform distribution of objects, redistribute a minimum number of objects, and maintain fast data access with low computational complexity. We show through experimentation that BroadScale achieves these requirements when scaling heterogeneous storage.     

Exploring casual point-and-tilt interactions for mobile geo-blogging

People record and share their experiences through text, audio and video. Increasingly they do this blogging from mobile devices. We illustrate a novel, mobile, low interaction cost approach to support the creation of a rich record of journeys made and places encountered: by pointing and tilting a mobile, users indicate their interests in a location. We built three mobile prototypes to explore the approach—the first one combines gestures and visual map feedback; the second provides a simpler visual interface; the third supports eyes-free interaction, allowing the user to simply point-and-tilt, with no visual display required. We describe two field studies undertaken to understand the value of the interaction styles afforded, then continue with a further user study to assess the interaction speed and accuracy between these interaction methods. We present the results of these studies and raise issues relevant to their design and to the wider class of devices and services concerned with mobile spatial information access.     

物联网与智能家居教学系统

物联网相关专业的开设热潮带来了对物联网教学工具的迫切需求。本文结合ZigBee无线通信技术、3G移动通信技术及C#编程技术,研发了一个以智能家居为依托的物联网教学系统,实现了短信、软件、手动三种方式控制家电的目标,具有自动搜索设备、自动组网的特点;并设计了基于此系统的多项实训实验。     

Online risk-based authentication using behavioral biometrics

In digital home networks, it is expected that independent smart devices communicate and cooperate with each other, without the knowledge of the fundamental communication technology, on the basis of a distributed operating system paradigm. In such context, securing the access rights to some objects such as data, apparatus, and contents, is still a challenge. This paper introduces a risk-based authentication technique based on behavioral biometrics as solution approach to tackle this challenge. Risk-based authentication is an increasingly popular component in the security architecture deployed by many organizations to mitigate online identity fraud. Risk-based authentication uses contextual and historical information extracted from online communications to build a risk profile for the user that can be used accordingly to make authentication and authorization decisions. Existing risk-based authentication systems rely on basic web communication information such as the source IP address or the velocity of transactions performed by a specific account, or originating from a certain IP address. Such information can easily be spoofed, and as such, put in question the robustness and reliability of the proposed systems. In this paper, we propose a new online risk-based authentication system that provides more robust user identity information by combining mouse dynamics and keystroke dynamics biometrics in a multimodal framework. We propose a Bayesian network model for analyzing free keystrokes and free mouse movements involved in web sessions. Experimental evaluation of our proposed model with 24 participants yields an Equal Error Rate of 8.21 %. This is very encouraging considering that we are dealing with free text and free mouse movements, and the fact that many web sessions tend to be very short.     

A saunter down memory lane: Digital reflection on personal mementos

We all collect personal mementos, treasured objects that remind us about our past. We also remember significant people and places from our past. A key way that we reflect on our identity is through collecting, organizing and talking to others about such personal mementos, places and people. However, most work on mementos has focused on physical objects rather than their digital representations. And when digital archives have been examined these have been found to be underexploited. We, therefore, implemented and evaluated a new class of digital memory application, MemoryLane, that is designed on the basis of prior research into memory and reminiscence. MemoryLane allows people to capture, actively organize and reflect on digital representations of mementos relating to people, places and objects. Users can also annotate captured mementos with spoken or textual narratives. User feedback provides new information about the nature of digital reminiscing and reflection. Our 31 persons evaluation showed that people were active in organizing and reflecting on these personal digital collections. As we expected, most mementos centered around familiar home objects, although mementos relating to people tended to be regarded as most important and to evoke stronger emotions. Participants also recorded many spoken narratives about mementos, but these spoken reflections were unpopular on playback. We discuss the theoretical and design implications of our work.     

HTML5-based system for interoperable 3D digital home applications

Digital home application market shifts just about every month. This means risk for developers struggling to adapt their applications to several platforms and marketplaces while changing how people experience and use their TVs, smartphones and tablets. New ubiquitous and context-aware experiences through interactive 3D applications on these devices engage users to interact with virtual applications with complex 3D scenes. Interactive 3D applications are boosted by emerging standards such as HTML5 and WebGL removing limitations, and transforming the Web into a real application framework to tackle interoperability over the heterogeneous digital home platforms. Developers can apply their knowledge of web-based solutions to design digital home applications, removing learning curve barriers related to platform-specific APIs. However, constraints to render complex 3D environments are still present especially in home media devices. This paper provides a state-of-the-art survey of current capabilities and limitations of the digital home devices and describes a latency-driven system design based on hybrid remote and local rendering architecture, enhancing the interactive experience of 3D graphics on these thin devices. It supports interactive navigation of high complexity 3D scenes while provides an interoperable solution that can be deployed over the wide digital home device landscape.