Ubicomp challenges in collaborative scheduling: Pin&;Play at the Göteborg film festival

Ubicomp technology faces many technical challenges, which makes it difficult to test in real world situations. However, understanding and building for everyday practices is crucial for ubicomp designers, in order to push the technological development in the directions needed. We have developed and tested a ubiquitous computing prototype supporting collaborative scheduling. It is based on Pin&Play, a surface-based networking technology with interactive pushpins. The team of a local film festival was engaged in the development process, which resulted in a partial implementation illustrating how their current work practice could be supported. Drawing on this particular design case, we report findings and discuss challenges for ubicomp technology in general.     

Do handheld devices facilitate face‐to‐face collaboration? Handheld devices with large shared display groupware to facilitate group interactions

Abstract   One-to-one computing environments change and improve classroom dynamics as individual students can bring handheld devices fitted with wireless communication capabilities into the classrooms. However, the screens of handheld devices, being designed for individual-user mobile application, limit promotion of interaction among groups of learners. This study proposes a design of classrooms that incorporates personal workspace and public workspace. Students use handheld devices as private workspace and work with peers on public workspace with shared displays through their handheld devices. Experiments confirmed that students with only handheld devices did not demonstrate expected participation ratios and actively interact with group members. The proposed shared display groupware promoted shared understanding of the workspace and increased awareness of partner actions. Collaboration was enhanced by creating the opportunity for students to use handheld devices to perform ideal communication patterns and avoiding ineffective communication patterns.     

Sketch Interpretation Using Multiscale Models of Temporal Patterns

Sketching is a natural input modality that has received increased interest in the computer graphics and human-computer interaction communities. The emergence of hardware such as tablet PCs and handheld PDAs provides easy means for capturing pen input. These devices combine a display, pen tracker, and computing device, making it possible to capture and process sketches online, as they are drawn. In this article, we present our sketch-recognition framework, which uses data to automatically learn the object orderings that commonly occur when people sketch and then use the orderings for sketch recognition. The key features that make this framework novel include learning object-level patterns from data, handling objects comprising multiple strokes (multistroke objects) and objects that share strokes (multiobject strokes), and supporting continuous observable features. We also present an efficient graphical model implementation of our approach and report that a specialized inference algorithm known as the Lauritzen-Jensen stable conditional Gaussian belief propagation should be used to avoid numerical instabilities in recognition     

An Evaluation of Chromium OS:the Next Generation Operating System

操作系统是计算机系统中的一个重要部分,是用户应用程序与计算机硬件的接口,为用户执行I/O任务,保持对文件系统的跟踪,负责系统安全并只允许授权用户进入。传统的操作系统不需要网络功能,但大多数支持网络协议。Chromium操作系统是一个基于互联网的操作系统,为网民提供一种可选择的、更快和更安全的方式访问互联网及基于互联网的应用程序。Chromium操作系统的设计从固件级到应用程序级都注重安全意识。Chromium操作系统作为一种辅助计算设备,为利用网络进行工作的用户提供跨不同物理设备的稳定的计算体验。     

Will wireless gaming be a winner?

Computer games, whether played on a PC or a console, are among the most commercially successful applications. Now, companies from various sectors of the computer industry are hoping to transfer this success to a smaller stage: cellular phones, PDAs, and other wireless handheld devices. Boosting this effort is the advent in mobile devices of faster processors, color screens, better sound, and improved input-command features, all of which have elevated mobile gaming to near-console quality. Game designers are trying to develop appropriate content and quality levels for handheld devices and various target demographics. The paper discusses new approaches.     

The conceptual framing,design and evaluation of device ecologies for collaborative activities

A variety of computing technologies, in addition to the personal computer, are now commonly used in many settings. As networking infrastructures mature, it is increasingly feasible and affordable to consider closer integration and use of these heterogeneous devices in tandem. However, little is known about how best to design or evaluate such ‘device ecologies’; in particular, how best to combine devices to achieve a desired type of collaborative user experience. A central concern is how users switch their attention between devices, to utilize the various elements to best effect. We describe here the development of an ecology of devices for groups of students to use when engaged in collaborative inquiry-learning activities. This included a multi-touch tabletop, laptops, projections, video streams and telephone. In situ studies of students and tutors using it in three different settings showed how individuals and groups switched their foci between the multiple devices. We present our findings, using a novel method for analysing users’ transitions between foci, identifying patterns and emergent characteristics. We then discuss the importance of designing for transitions that enable groups to appropriately utilise an ecology of devices, using the concepts of seams, bridges, niches and focal character.     

Pervasive Computing Support for Hospitals: An overview of the Activity-Based Computing Project

The activity-based computing project researched pervasive computing support for clinical hospital work. Such technologies have potential for supporting the mobile, collaborative, and disruptive use of heterogeneous embedded devices in a hospital     

Collaborative information environments to support knowledge construction by communities

Computer-based design environments for skilled domain workers have recently graduated from research prototypes to commercial products, supporting the learning of individual designers. Such systems do not, however, adequately support the collaborative nature of work or the evolution of knowledge within communities of practice. If innovation is to be supported within collaborative efforts, thesedomain-oriented design environments (DODEs) must be extended to becomecollaborative information environments (CIEs), capable of providing effective community memories for managing information and learning within constantly evolving collaborative contexts. In particular, CIEs must provide functionality that facilitates the construction of new knowledge and the shared understanding necessary to use this knowledge effectively within communities of practice.This paper reviews three stages of work on artificial (computer-based and Web-based) systems that augment the intelligence of people and organisations. NetSuite illustrates the DODE approach to supporting the work of individual designers with learning-on-demand. WebNet extends this model to CIEs that support collaborative learning by groups of designers. Finally, WebGuide shows how a computational perspectives mechanism for CIEs can support the construction of knowledge and of shared understanding within groups. According to recent theories of cognition, human intelligence is the product of tool use and of social mediations as well as of biological development; CIEs are designed to enhance this intelligence by providing computationally powerful tools that are supportive of social relations.     

Sketching Tangible Interfaces: Creating an Electronic Palette for the Design Community

Until very recently, the typical home computer user accessed the machine's software and processing capabilities solely through the physical interfaces of a mouse, keyboard, and monitor. Everyone, from software designers to industrial designers to Web site designers, relied on these elements to be the physical-interaction method that users employed to access their product. Today, interface designers can no longer assume that the interaction between a user and a digital interface occurs only, or most effectively, through traditional devices such as keyboards, mice, and number pads. Tangible interfaces and ubiquitous-computing technologies are changing the human relationship to computing technology, and designers must take this into account when creating products and services. In this article the authors describe some of the tools available for this purpose, including proprietary, open-source, and custom solutions.     

Internet Based Collaborative Product Conceptual Design

Generation of Product Concept needs to give full play to the designers' innovative potential and collaborative work of experts in different fields. However, the collaborative innovative capabilities of geographically distributed designers are often limited and hindered by space and time. Therefore, on the basis of the requirements analysis of Internet based collaborative conceptual design and the research work we have done, this paper proposes the overall framework of supporting collaborative conceptual design on Internet. Based on this overall framework, the authors further put forward collaborative conceptual design process model that includes three stages: concept generation, concept communication and optimal product concept selection. At the end of the paper, the experiment environment of collaborative design is described. The overall framework and collaborative conceptual design process model proposed can take full advantage of Internet and give full play to experts' experiences and wisdom, so that the rapid development and innovative design of product can be provided with effectively and efficiently implemental mode and support on Internet.     

Developing technologies for broad-network concurrent computing

Recent developments in networking infrastructures, computer workstation capabilities, software tools, and programming languages have motivated new approaches to broad-network concurrent computing. This paper describes extensions to concurrent computing which blend new and evolving technologies to extend users' access to resources beyond their local network. The result is a concurrent programming environment which can dynamically extend over network and file system boundaries to envelope additional resources, to enable multiple-user collaborative programming, and to achieve a more optimal process mapping. Additional aspects of the derivative environment feature extended portability and support for the accessing of legacy codes and packages. This paper describes the advantages of such a design and how they have been implemented in the environment termed “IceT”.     

Design and Implementation of a PKI-Based End-to-End Secure Infrastructure for Mobile E-Commerce

The popularity of handheld mobile devices and deployment of the public key infrastructure in many parts of the world have led to the development of electronic commerce on mobile devices. For the current version of mobile phones, the main challenge is the limited computing capacity on these devices for PKI-based end-to-end secure transactions. This paper presents a new architecture and protocol for authentication and key exchange as well as the supporting infrastructure that is suitable for the mobile phone environment. The system requirements and our solutions in addressing these requirements in the restrictive environment are discussed. An evaluation of the system performance is also included. The system has been implemented and is supporting some real-life applications.     

Browsing the mobile Internet

There has been plenty of hyperbole about the wireless Internet and the possibility that millions of users will soon access e-mail and Web pages on a smart phone, PDA, or pager. However, little attention has been paid to a technology that is key to the wireless Internet's success or failure: the microbrowser. As wireless networking improves and the demand for Internet-enabled handheld devices grows, it will be equally important for microbrowser technology to move forward. Developers will face the challenge of improving microbrowser technology while maintaining the small footprint necessary to work with low-resource handheld devices     

What makes mobile computer supported cooperative work mobile? Towards a better understanding of cooperative mobile interactions

Despite the high availability of mobile phones and personal digital assistants with online capabilities, mobile computer supported cooperative work is still in its infancy. So far, only little is known about the distinct attributes of mobile cooperative work in comparison to its stationary counterpart. Across which dimensions does cooperation via mobile devices differ from traditional hard-wired settings and what implications have to be drawn for future research? To bring more light to this question, we conducted an experimental business-case at Frankfurt University with 16 graduate students and analysed their collaborative behaviour across mobile and non-mobile channels of communication over a 5 week period. We find that mobile messages differed from stationary messages in terms of size and that the use of mobile emails prevailed over stationary emails under conditions of stress. Finally, we found that the social structure of mobile communication corresponded with the structure of stationary communication. This indicates that mobile communication technologies support existing communication relations rather than creating new relations. From the perspective of system designers, these results may serve as practical insights into the user behaviour of mobile technologies and might support the future development of mobile computer supported cooperative work environments.     

Cyber-physical-social collaborative sensing: from single space to cross-space

The development of wireless sensor networking, social networking, and wearable sensing techniques has advanced the boundaries of research on understanding social dynamics. Collaborative sensing, which utilizes diversity sensing and computing abilities across different entities, has become a popular sensing and computing paradigm. In this paper, we first review the history of research in collaborative sensing, which mainly refers to single space collaborative sensing that consists of physical, cyber, and social collaborative sensing. Afterward, we extend this concept into cross-space collaborative sensing and propose a general reference framework to demonstrate the distinct mechanism of cross-space collaborative sensing. We also review early works in cross-space collaborative sensing, and study the detail mechanism based on one typical research work. Finally, although cross-space collaborative sensing is a promising research area, it is still in its infancy. Thus, we identify some key research challenges with potential technical details at the end of this paper.     

Designing collaborative,constructionist and contextual applications for handheld devices

This paper explores current applications for handheld devices and questions which of these make full use of the unique attributes of handheld devices in order to facilitate learning in a pedagogically sensible manner. In order to do so, the paper presents a functional framework which analyses handheld application in relation to their use as well as the pedagogical underpinning, if any, that informs their development. Our framework currently consists of seven distinct categories of application, which we term: administrative, referential, interactive, microworld, data collection, location aware and collaborative. We argue that three categories, namely data collection, location aware and collaborative, are particularly suited to learning with handheld devices when they are informed by collaborative, contextual and constructionist learning theories. Furthermore, we contend that applications of the type just outlined deserve further research since they are not attempting to replicate, or even augment, existing learning scenarios but rather they try to create new learning opportunities which would not be possible without (mobile) technology. Finally, the authors introduce a number of applications and learning scenarios that they have developed for handheld devices and explain their position within the framework.     

Design and implementation of a smart system for personalization and accurate selection of mobile services

Wireless mobile services are computing applications that run on handheld wireless devices. Such applications must work within the daunting constraints of the devices, which include memory, processing power, input capabilities, and size of display. It is therefore important that mobile services take into account the user’s context, optimize resource usage, and minimize input effort imposed on the user. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a smart agent-enabled system for personalizing wireless mobile services and advertisements for Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) or Java ME, and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) enabled devices. We use software agents for context filtering because such autonomous software entities have characteristics that can benefit mobile devices and the wireless environment, and the Composite Capability/Preference Profiles (CC/PP) standard for defining profiles for user preferences and device capabilities. The system incorporates the use of artificial neural networks to adaptively and iteratively learn to select the best available service based on contextual information. The system is evaluated using practical operating scenarios, as well as empirical data and results show an 87% success rate in the selection of the best available service.     

Lightweight security for mobile commerce transactions

This paper describes a lightweight security mechanism for protecting electronic transactions conducted over the mobile platform. In a typical mobile computing environment, one or more of the transacting parties are based on some wireless handheld devices. Electronic transactions conducted over the mobile platform are gaining popularity and it is widely accepted that mobile computing is a natural extension of the wired Internet computing world. However, security over the mobile platform is more critical due to the open nature of wireless networks. Furthermore, security is more difficult to implement on the mobile platform because of the resource limitation of mobile handheld devices. Therefore, security mechanisms for protecting traditional computer communications need to be revisited so as to ensure that electronic transactions involving mobile devices can be secured and implemented in an effective manner. This research is part of our effort in designing security infrastructure for electronic commerce systems, which extend from the wired to the wireless Internet. A lightweight mechanism was designed to meet the security needs in face of the resource constraints. The proposed mechanism is proven to be practical in real deployment environment.     

边缘智能与协同计算: 前沿与进展

随着万物互联时代的到来,边缘设备规模急剧增加,海量数据在网络边缘产生,人工智能技术的飞速发展为分析和处理这些数据提供了强大的支撑.然而,传统云计算的集中处理模式难以满足用户对任务低时延和设备低功耗的需求,并带来数据隐私泄露的潜在隐患.与此同时,嵌入式高性能芯片的发展显著提升了边缘设备的计算能力,使其能够在边缘侧实时处理部分计算密集型任务.在此背景下,边缘计算和人工智能有机融合,孕育了一种新的计算范式:边缘智能.鉴于此,聚焦边缘智能与协同计算的前沿与进展,首先概述边缘计算、人工智能和边缘智能的相关背景、基本原理与发展趋势;然后从训练、推理和缓存3个方面回顾面向单个设备的边缘智能方法;接着从架构、技术和功能3个维度介绍多个设备合作实现边缘智能协同的相关工作;最后总结边缘智能在工业物联网、智慧城市和虚拟现实等领域的广泛应用.     

Enterprise computing with Jini technology

You may think of Jini technology from Sun Microsystems as software for networking embedded systems-machines that contain a microprocessor and do a specific task. But more specifically, Jini software gives network devices self-configuration and self-management capabilities; it lets devices communicate immediately on a network without human intervention. These networks are also self-healing in that devices that leave the network for any reason (machine crashes or power surges, for example) do not affect the remaining devices' operation. A Jini client that loses contact with a server can recover and continue processing. Although it is precisely these advantages that make Jini technology attractive for embedded systems, why stop there? Network plug-and-play capabilities and self-configuration are also attractive for enterprise computing. Java, for example, was initially designed for embedded devices. But that hasn't stopped it from becoming a major force in enterprise computing. Does Java drive your Web server or backend application? At many companies, it does-not a bad accomplishment for an embedded system language. We contend that Jini technology's true promise lies in enterprise computing because it has unique abilities that extend beyond plug-and-play network connectivity