WiFi, Ubicomp & Smart Mobs

1. WiFi, Ubicomp & Smart Mobs • Smart Mobs • System Directions for Pervasive Computing • Are we there yet? • Unplugged U • If not now, what’s changed? • T-Spaces: The Next Wave

2. How do we recognize the future? • Does it have to “land on you”? • What role does experience (or inexperience) play in adoption of ideas & technology? • Analogies help • “It’s like X, but with Y” • It’s like radio, but with two-way communications • What change doesn’t begin within a subculture? • Early adopters (innovator’s Dilemma) • “Ground truths” and working knowledge • Nothing goes away, but it can get repurposed • Technologies “enable people to act together in new ways & in situations where collective action was not before possible” p xviii

3. Smart Mobs Chapter 1: Mobile/Context-Aware Computing • “Texters” – European/Japanese youth • Altered notions of home/place/time • Presence uncoupled from physicality • Addition of simple iconography (tools for social interaction) improved marketability of mobile computing devicces • Device becomes “remote control” for your life • Swarming: cyber-negotiated public flocking behavior • Location-sensitive technology gives locally relevant information to citizens/travelers

4. Smart Mobs • Short text messages (SMS) changing social dynamics • New terminology, customs, social norms • Read together, composed together, passed around, edited between users • Broadcast messages for parties, fare jumpers, gathering • Text messaging allows maintenance of social relationships not amenable to “real-world” relationships • Continuous connections, regardless of place • 2 simultaneous “spaces” of social interaction: physical and virtual • BUT, they also change “faces” depending on which world they attend to

5. Smart Mobs Chapter 2: Technologies of Cooperation • Why choose to cooperate on line? • Input a little knowledge to commons, but access larger (better) collective knowledge • Give to get, pay to play • Design characteristics for self-governing & self-organizing groups • Clear boundaries • Rules match local needs/conditions • Most people affected by rules can also modify them • Right to design own rules respected by external authorities • Monitoring system for behavior

6. Smart Mobs • Design characteristics for self-governing & self-organizing groups • Community members themselves do the monitoring • Graduated system of sanctions • Conflict-resolution mechanisms • Mechanisms to overcome “tragedy of commons” • Group = Game Theory Prisoners’ Dilemma – Tit-for-Tat, Zero-sum • Cooperators can thrive in population of defectors if they can recognize each other (social network) • Outperform non-cooperative/self-centered resource consumption strategies • Power of social network (not just a group) • Metcalfe’s Law: total value of network of nodes grows w/square of # of nodes • Reed’s Law: total value grows at rate of 2 to power of # nodes

7. Smart Mobs Chapter 3: Computation Nations and Swarm Supercomputers • Distributed sharing of disc space – more storage than single device • Distributed sharing of CPU cycles – more processing power than individual CPU • SETI@home • Distributed crack of RSA encryption • Folding@home – examine medical data to devise better disease treatment • P2P – Every client is also a server • Grid-computing • “Node computing” or “Continuous Computing”

8. Smart Mobs Chapter 4: Era of Sentient Things • Information in places: media linked to location • Smart rooms: sensing and responsive • Sentient objects: adding info/communications to everyday objects • Tangible bits: manipulating virtual world through interaction w/physical • Wearable computers

9. Smart Mobs Chapter 4: Era of Sentient Things • Intel adding radio transponder to every chip • Ubicomp: not just computing devices everywhere, but invisible integration w/environment • “Augmented reality”—using computing power to sense beyond limits of human senses • “Perceptual intelligence”—computers responsive to characteristics of their users

10. Smart Mobs Cooltown • virtual information overlays on real-world objects/locations • Seamless integration of computing devices and file formats (print any document on any device from any local printer) • Attentive billboards: Minority Report consumerism • Code reading devices—click on object in real world and expect something to happen • Google Maps, Satellite photos, Ridesharing, Taxi availability

11. Smart Mobs • RFID • Track movement of objects, people, information and how they are used • “Smart money” • Wheel of Zeus • Radio tagging for keeping found things found • Bookmarking your tennis shoes, loaning a book • Cyborgspace – Steve Mann • Personally mediate reality on YOUR terms • Record all your experiences from your PoV & others

12. Smart Mobs Chapter 5: Evolution of Reputation • Overview of getting know-how on line • Usenet • Collaborative filtering • FAQs • Building trust along w/reputation • eBay • Epinions • Blogs • Slashdot

13. Smart Mobs • Online anonymity can also be a shield for irrational/unproductive behavior • Drives away legitimate contributors if too many “freeloaders” of freely accessible information • Biological theories of cooperation • “Restores shadow of future” to each transaction • Threat of future consequences mediates present behavior • Reputation allows loosely related people to cooperate and collectively create value beyond capabilities of action on local/individual levels

14. Smart Mobs Chapter 6: Wireless Quits • LOTS of technology and spectrum management review • History of wireless infrastructure development • Spectrum access methods • Spread spectrum • Frequency hopping • “Mini-burst” transmissions • What if every receiver is also a mini transmitter—total production of ad-hoc networks • WiFi, Bluetooth, low-power transmitters

15. Smart Mobs Chapter 7: Smart Mobs - The Power of the Mobile Many • Less effort to perpetuate information movement than information production • Rise of P2P journalism • Constant surveillance mitigates our social behavior • Notion of personal area network – wearable computers + context & location awareness • New task-based economy (WALID) • Agents exchange lists of personally relevant tasks between actors in close proximity (see Good Old Fashioned Future)

16. Smart Mobs Chapter 7: Smart Mobs - The Power of the Mobile Many • Swarm intelligence: thresholds of individual action actually a social function • 4 characteristics of swarm systems • Absence of centralized control • Autonomous subunits • High connectivity between subunits • Peers influencing peers

17. Smart Mobs Chapter 8: Always-On Panopticon • Dangers of smart mob technologies • Threats to liberty – ubiquitous surveillance • Threats to quality of life – too much information • Digital neuroses: is someone constantly watching me or piecing together a picture of my activities? • Threats to human dignity – are we becoming too automated and tied to technology? • Favor virtual relationships for face-to-face • Lose social skills in “real” interaction

18. Smart Mobs Chapter 8: Always-On Panopticon • Key to influence in future: network capital • Ability to use technical and social networking resources to your advantage • Smart mob technology may change how we view the world and relate to each other the way printing and literacy transformed our society once before

19. Pervasive Computing • Pervasive computing: focus on users & tasks vs. computing devices & technology • Seamless infrastructure • Invisible technology • HW is approaching, but little software operates in this environment • 3 primary problems to be solved in pervasive computing system architecture

20. New Devices, Old Interfaces • Each new device builds on the assumptions of the previous devices & designs • Who has read all of the documentation for their phone, iPod, PDA, bluetooth device? • Who can use all of the functions on any of these devices? • How many steps does it take to do a common task? • Infrequent tasks like configuration, synchronization, sequential tasks need moresupport, not less

21. Working with PVC Devices? • Connections? • How are the bits interlinked? • How do they get into the PIM? • All in one place? • Is centralized necessarily better? • Client or Server for storage & help? • Integration among tools • Formats • Importing & Exporting • Integration for tasks • Sequences • Automation • Integration among users • Shared contacts, bookmarks, lists, filters • Common formats or meta information

22. Pervasive Computing 1: Objects don’t scale well in large networks • Single abstraction for data AND function • Assumes interfaces don’t change often • WWWeb consortium standards driving standardized data types/formats • Private companies compete for functionality making for many different interfaces • Assumes we can design interfaces that handle object implementations w/stability & over time • Static data easy to handle (html, pdf, etc.) • Active data harder to control/secure (active content)

23. Pervasive Computing 2: Resource availability limited/intermittent • Data/resource locations transparent in distributed environment • Programmer’s folly – applications assume continuity of resource access 3: Program/distributing apps unmanageable • No common platform • Many “classes” of computing devices • Installation/functionality differ between classes

24. Pervasive Computing Solutions: one.world architecture 1. Keep data and functionality separate • Data = tuples (named & typed fields) • Functionality = components (units of functionality) • Both unified in environments = tuples + components + other environments (nested data/functionality) 2. Program for change • Applications must acquire all resources (local and distributed) incl. storage & communication channels • Store resources as primitives movable to other devices (environment tree of all tuples + components from execution state) • Constantly renew/refresh resources

25. Pervasive Computing Solutions: one.world architecture 3. Common platform w/integrated API & single binary format • Single instruction set implemented across classes • Should be virtual machine-based technology • Smaller devices emulate networking protocols or communicate through proxies elsewhere on network

26. Unplugged U • Wireless experiments/trendsetting @ Dartmouth • Locators (laptops, PDAs, panic-button boxes) • Where are your friends (or at least their laptops)? • In the classroom • Aggregate responses – like a game show • Avoids “performance anxiety” • PDA appointment reminders adjusted! • Social analysis (network traffic patterns) • E-mail (“Blitzes”) for idle chat

27. T-Spaces: The Next Wave • T-Spaces: combination of dbase, tuplespace, mobile computing and Java • Promises total internetworking for every/any computing device on the network • “Middleware” that manages data exchange between mobile devices, PCs, mainframes, etc. • Tuplespace: simple agents communicating through tuples exchange asynchronously & anonymously • Globally shared, visible and addressable memory space • Allows number of agents to work simultaneously • Allows variable receivers to register interest in message

28. T-Spaces: The Next Wave • How they work • Data generating programs create a tuple and pushes it out to tuplespace (data store) • Program requiring data requests some or all of the tuple for its own purposes and reads it in • Beyond simple message passing – addressing is associative not determinative • Early example – blackboard system (Hearsay II) • Knowledge sources (agents) communicate through the blackboard (a global database) • Knowledge sources search blackboard for problem descriptions matching their domains of expertise • Write solutions for these problems back to the blackboard

29. T-Spaces: The Next Wave • Evolution of Tuple-based systems included database/query/join functions • Renewed interest thanks to distributed applications apps on WWW and platform-independent environment of Java • T-Space application: • Tuplespace component = flexible communications model • Dbase component adds stability, durability, advanced query & data storage • Java provides instant portability and instant download for changes in functionality on the fly

30. What are the myths of new tech? • We’ll automatically be better, smarter & faster • Society will embrace the change • Organizations will adapt • Workers will like it • Shareholders will be pleased (quarterly) • Everyone gets a voice • Coordination is easy, we just needed the tools

31. What’s next? • Personal Area Networks • Separating Space vs. Location • Phone as remote control for your life • Swarming technologies • Distributed computing • Keys, tunnels and tokens