ICS 203B Ubiquitous Computing and Interaction 2002 Abstracts for Term Projects
Class Home Academic Honesty Schedule, Lecture, & Assignments → 2002 Abstracts for Term Projects Links & Resources	Term Topics from Winter 2002 These project titles and abstracts from the Winter Quarter 2002 offering of this class are for motivation only. The class focus is more theoretical so this quarter’s term projects should reflect that at least in their presentation and discussion of a theme. Wearable Technologies and their Social Impacts People are becoming increasingly dependent on computers, yet they often lack access to their machines. Wearable computers solve this accessibility problem by following their users wherever they may go. As technology improves more of these wearables are being incorporated into modern societies. This paper discusses advantages and disadvantages of wearables. Also, the social impacts of some of today’s wearable are presented as well as a brief look into the future of wearable computers. Real-time Interactive Applications in Ubiquitous Computing This paper will introduce some of the issues that is involved in a particular area of ubiquitous computing, which is real-time interactive applications. These are applications hat allows one to interact with multiple people in a real-time manner. Furthermore, any one of the participant should have the ability to change the global state at any moment. First we will discuss some of the requirements that are involved in these kinds of applications, then we will look at some of the applications that is currently being developed. Finally, we will examine the proposed architecture for real-time interactive applications(RIA) and some of the interesting challenges that are present within these architectures. Ubiquitous Computing: The Past, the Present and the Future This paper is a brief survey the existing field of ubiquitous computing. It touches on the high level detail on research fields that are closely related to ubiquitous computing. This paper begins with an investigation of the origin of ubiquitous computing – ubicomp (the past). Then it discusses the efforts in computer research across multiple disciplines (the present). Next the paper presents a brief discussion of the challenges in ubiquitous computing (a bridge to the future). At last a summary of the key aspects is given in the conclusion section. Ubiquitous Computing: Are Agents the Future? Intelligent agents for long have been proposed as the future of computing. In many computing scenarios we have intelligent agents playing important roles and trying to ease peoples’ life. This paper looks at ubiquitous computing – proposed as one the futures of computing and how intelligent agents fit the scenario or if they do. The approach taken is the study of various different types of agents and then relating it to the ideal scenarios in ubiquitous computing as stated by the father of ubiquitous computing, Mark Weiser. User Modeling and Ubiquitous Computers Ubiquitous Computing is a paradigm in which lightweight computers are incorporated into everyday things and accomplish tasks with minimal explicit human interaction. The possibilities of ubiquitous computing has gained a lot of interest for a wide range of disciplines, and is the focus of a major initiative in Europe where the European Union has charged its Commission on Future and Emerging Technologies with the task of making ubiquitous computing a reality in the near future. The goal of ubiquitous computing is to become “ready-to-hand,” or to be an invisible medium for the user’s intent. While many ubiquitous computers will never interact with the user directly, they all will in one way or another carry out the user’s wishes. To do so effectively, these devices must have some idea of what the user needs; they must have some form of user model that they can use to predict the user’s desire. Technical aspects of realizing a vision of ubiquitous computing Ubiquitous computing often gives visions of how they expect the device or the environment the user is in to behave. The paper focuses on the needs for today’s consumers , being easily accessible everywhere, easy to use, low maintenance , portable and very convenient. Most of the “visions” that exist often fail to conceive the backbone infrastructure and architecture that they expect the applications to run on. The paper walks through a vision of ubiquitous computing and deals with the technical aspects that constrain the efficient realization of Ubiquitous computing. The paper also gives solutions to what could be the efficient backbone structure for ubiquitous computing. Ubiquity and Business: INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF UBIQUITOUS IT SOLUTIONS IN BUSINESS MODELS This paper discusses the state of art in implementing pervasive computing solutions in the finance industry, the issues involved, and varied approaches. It then discusses the EasyWinWin requirements gathering model, discussing its features and applicability to projects involving cutting edge technology. It then proposes the additional issues that need to be discussed in WinWin negotiations when it is applied to implementing pervasive solutions in the finance industry WEARABLE COMPUTING –What Lies Ahead? This project aims to discuss the distinction between ubiquitous and wearable computing; the status of wearable computers; the challenges faced by software and hardware manufacturers in developing effective and widely accepted wearable devices; and the commencement of a new paradigm for how wearable technology can create value for consumers and enterprises. Survey of Biometric Authentication System Based on the survey, many companies will still use traditional security solutions, but the market of biometric authentication is getting its ground step by step. After September 11, security issue concerns more and more people. In fact, for many organizations, implementing the right biometric user identification technique can improve data security and lead to significant cost savings by reducing help desk calls. As long as the biometric technology become maturer and the cost will become less, we will see more applications will biometric authentications appear in our life. Augmented Reality: A Brief Survey and its Relation to Ubiquitous Computing Augmented reality is the term applied to systems that seek to combine a physical view of the world with digital information. This additional data is superimposed on this physical view, with the intent of enhancing the performance of human beings in the world due to the additional information now available. Augmented reality has found application in many domain areas ranging from military training purposes to entertainment, and initial systems have shown great promise. However, the technology is not without its problems; important issues that need to be solved include the density of data displayed, the accurate alignment of images, and the exact tracking of physical locations of objects. Augmented reality technologies have the potential to change the way people live their lives with information readily available to them; this matches the goals of research in ubiquitous computing. An examination of the principles and practical considerations of ubiquitous computing technologies reveals that augmented reality could very well be the ideal technological implementation of Weiser's ubiquitous vision. HUMAN COMPUTERIZATION: THE CYBORG In addition to smart rooms and mobile Internet access Ubiquitous computing circles need to accept the imminent usefulness and need for human computerization. By placing computational devices within a biological entity, in most cases a human, one vision of ubiquitous computing is realized. Popularized as a feature of science fiction literature, the concept has grown into a scientific reality with tremendous market potential. Cyborg technology is truly an invisible ready-at-hand computer system available everywhere a person could venture. Challenges Faced in a Nomadic Computing Environment The number of people accessing their computing resources away from the desktop and while in motion has soared over the past few years. People now wish to have access to their information and resources anytime and anywhere. Advances in the field of networking and the advent of smaller computing and communicating devices have served to assist this trend further. All this has heralded the 'nomadic computing' era in which users can wander from one location to another and have instant access to their personal information, in an environment that closely mimics their personal preferences and settings. This nomadic era, however, faces a number of challenges with respect to performance, reliability, speed, security and consistency. The current state of nomadic computing resources, devices and networks is not advanced enough to provide the nomad with services comparable to their desktop counterparts. This paper is an attempt to survey the state of art in nomadic computing environments and to identify some of the challenges faced by nomads. Context Aware Applications Ubiquitous Computing aims to make the computer’ invisible’ to the user and enhance the level of services offered to him. Computers are not intelligent enough to make use to context information while interacting with users or other computing devices. Such context information could be used by applications to make interactions flexible, adaptable and user-friendly for the user. This term paper talks about such context-aware applications. It discusses the framework required for such applications and provides descriptions about the various existing context-aware applications. It takes a special look at such applications in mobile computing domain.