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Chapter 16 Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing

Contents

16.1 Introduction

Volatile systems;

16.2 Association

Discovery services; Physical association; Summary and perspective;

16.3 Interoperation

Data-oriented programming for volatile systems; Indirect associations and soft state; Summary and perspective;

16.4 Sensing and context-awareness

Sensors; Sensing architectures; Location-sensing; Summary and perspective;

16.5 Security and privacy

Background; Some solutions; Summary and perspective;

16.6 Adaptation

Context-aware adaptation of content; Adapting to changing system resources; Summary and perspective;

16.7 Case study of Cooltown

Web presences; Physical hyperlinks; Interoperation and the `eSquirt' protocol; Summary and perspective;

16.8 Summary

Outline

This chapter surveys the fields of mobile and ubiquitous computing, which have come about due to device miniaturization and wireless connectivity. Broadly speaking, mobile computing is concerned with exploiting the connectedness of portable devices; ubiquitous computing is about exploiting the increasing integration of computing devices with our everyday physical world.

The chapter introduces a common system model that stresses the volatility of mobile and ubiquitous systems: the set of users, devices and software components in any given environment is liable to change frequently. The chapter then surveys some of the chief areas of research that come about because of volatility and the physical bases for volatility, including: how software components come to associate and interoperate with one another as entities move, fail or spontaneously appear; how systems become integrated with the physical world through sensing and context awareness; the security and privacy issues that arise in volatile, physically integrated systems; and techniques for adapting to small devices’ lack of computational and I/O resources. The chapter ends with a case study of the Cooltown project, which devised a human-oriented, web-based architecture for mobile and ubiquitous computing.