UbiComp Info  

1 Vision

2 Related Concepts

2.1 Wearable Computing

• Wearcomp.Org
  Steve Mann is one of the most prominent person in this field. This website contains a lot of info related to his activities.
• The MIT Wearable Computing Web Page
  This page contains an introduction to the field of wearable computing, a resource for some technical information and links to some related events.
  
• Wearable Computing Group, TecO, University of Karlsruhe
  Their main research topics are: Context-Aware wearablecomputing, New Interaction Metaphores, and Minimizing the Gap Between Physical Objects and the Virtual World.
• Wearable Computer
  An article by Imai. (in Japanese) Nikkei Electronics, No.734, pp.83-95 (1999). I haven't checked this yet. He is probably the guy who wrote an extensive article on UbiComp stuff several years ago.

2.2 Augmented Reality

• Introduction to Augmented Reality
  Provided by Jim Vallino at Rochester Institute of Technology. This is a part of his thesis proposal.

• Augment-able Reality at Sony CSL
  In many of the conventional Augmented Reality Environments, users are consumers of prepared information. However, in Augmentable Reality, Users can easily be authors of information. 

2.3 Telepresence

2.4 Tangible Bits  

2.5 Roomware  

2.6 Cooperative Buildings

2.7 Information Appliances 

• Invisible Computer (Don Norman's book)

2.8 Proactive Computing 

• Tennenhouse David, Proactive Computing, Communications of the ACM, May 2000. Vol.43, No.5, pp.43-50.

2.9 Amorphous Computing

• H. Abelson, D. Allen, D. Coore, C. Hanson, E. Rauch, G.J. Sussman, R. Weiss. Amorphous computing. Communication of the ACM, May 2000, Vol. 43, No.5. pp.75-82. The challenges of amorphous computing include engineering prespecified, coherent behavior from the cooperation of vast numbers of unreliable parts interconnected in unknown, irregular, and time-varying ways. Applying the lessons of cellular cooperation in biological organisms. 

2.10 Digital City

Some projects (e.g., Digital City Kyoto) raise certain issues concerning the integration of the physical world and computational media.

• Digital City Kyoto
• AOL Digital City
• Amsterdam Digital City
• Virtual Helsinki
• Boulder Community Network

2.11 PUI

2.12 User Experience Design

John Thackara discussed User Experience Design in his plenary talk (entitled "The design challenge of pervasive computing") at CHI'00. He discusses the innovation dilemma -- "we are increasingly at a loss to understand what to make" -- in the age of new technologies. Then he introduces User Experience Design -- a concept for the new economy. His page on the talk contains an organized set of links to further readings. 

2.13 Pervasive Computing

3 Classic Systems

• PARCTAB
  The PARCTAB system is a research prototype developed at Xerox PARC. 
  
• Active Badge
  A classic location system within a building developed at the Olivetti Research Laboratory (aquired by AT&T in 1999).
  
• Smart Rooms
  Developed at MIT Media Lab. Using cameras, microphones, and sensors, the system tries to capture what people are doing in a room. For example, a virtual dog on a large projection screen responds to gestures of a person in front of the screen. This system was used to construct a number of unique application environments.
  
•  NaviCam
  Developed at Sony CSL. Using a palmtop TV and a CCD camera, the system augments the real world by the computer's synthetic information.

4 Ongoing Research

4.1 Research Groups

• Xerox PARC
  This page contains links to various interesting projects at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
  
• FCE (Future Computing Environments) Group
  The Classroom 2000 (now it's called eClass) is one of their projects. Currently they are building a living laboratory for ubiquitous and everyday computing in the home (Aware Home).
  
• Tangible Media Group, MIT Media Lab
  Focuses on "the seamless coupling of physicality and virtuality."
  
• Things That Think (TTT) Consortium
  This consortium of MIT Media Lab includes a number of projects related to UbiComp.
  
• AT&T Laboratories Cambridge
  Interesting research projects including Active Bat (The Ultrasonic Location System).
  
• Input Research Group, University of Toronto
  This group did a lot of work on haptic input to computer systems. Bill Buxton may be one of the most well-known person in this field. He provides an extensive directory of sources for input technologies on his website. By "haptic", they mean input that involves physical contact (such as by the hand or foot).
  
• i-LAND project, GMD (German National Research Center for Information Technology).
  i-LAND stands for "an Interactive Landscape for Creativity and Innovation".  They have built a unique system by integrating so-called roomware components (Dynawall, InteracTable, CommChairs, and Passage). [See also: Roomware and Cooperative Buildings.]
  
• Microsoft Research EasyLiving Research Group
  This page provides the overview of the effort at Microsoft Research to build an intelligent environments using Vision Technologies 
  
• Human Computer Interaction (Intelligent Environments) group at MIT AI Lab
  Three research projects are listed under this name. Intelligent Room, which was presented at the 1st international workshop on Cooperative Buildings, seems to have evolved to a new project called Hal: The Next Generation Intelligent Room. It seems that they are building something interesting using Vision, Gesture and Speech Recognition techniques. Vision Interface Project works on perceptual human-computer interfaces.
  
• Vision and Modeling Group at MIT Media Lab
  A number of unique projects led by prominent researchers: research topics include Sandy Pentland's Perceptual Intelligence  Rosalind Picard's Affective Computing and Aaron Bobick's Seeing Action. Some examples of their projects: Smart Rooms, Smart Desks, Smart Chair, Smart Spaces, Smart Clothes, Affective Tangibles, Tanigble Phone, smartCar, Visually Aware Interactive Spaces, etc.
  
• Human Computer Interaction Projects at IBM Research 
  Interesting projects including BlueEyes (Attentive Environments, eye/gaze, head, person tracking), Interfaces for pervasive computing, Natural Interactions (Gesture recognition -- DreamSpace), Personal Area Communication (PAN)
  
• Stanford Interactive Workspaces Project
  Experimental hardware and software testbeds were built using high-resolution wall-mounted and tabletop displays (Interactive Murals and Interactive Tables), laptops, PDAs, wireless LAN, LCD-tablets, laser pointer trackers, microphone arrays, pan-and-tilt cameras. Their major research thrusts include a scalable distributed display architecture, architectures for the integration of multiple people and devices, interaction styles and associated toolkits, and a generalized interaction architecture (which is based on a ser-centered interaction model.)
  
• Interaction Laboratory, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.
  Members: Jun Rekimoto, Toshiyuki Masui and Kim Binsted (the slides she used for her plenary talk at CHI'00 is available online). A number of interesting projects including HoloWall, Matrix Code, Pick-and-Drop, Augmented Surfaces, Time-Machine Computing, Real World GUI, Real World Programming and HyperMask. More information can be found at individual pages of each researcher.
  
• Center for LifeLong Learning and Design, University of Colorado at Boulder
  A number of interesting projects that are based on certain philosophies and theoretical concepts. EDC (The Envisionment and Discovery Collaboratory ) is a collaborative environment integrating physical and computational aspects. Coleman Project is a joint research project supported by the Coleman Family Foundation and its mission is to provide computationally enhanced environments to assist people with a wide range of cognitive disabilities.
• Ubiquitous Computing Group at TecO, University of Karlsruhe
  Wide range of research topics including uses of PDAs, integration of everyday objects (like coffee cups) with computational media, middleware for ubiquitous and mobile computing, Web and UbiComp, gathering context-awareness for mobile information appliances, and Wearables.
  
• FX PAL
• Portolano Project at the University of Washington
  "The Portolano project seeks to create a testbed for investigation into the emerging field of invisible computing". Their vision is related to what Donald Norman talks about. In order to realize their vision, issues concerning User Interfaces (Multiple Interfaces and Invisible Interfaces), Distributed Services (Horizontal Integration, Agent Technology, and Service Deployment) and Infrastructure (Resource Discovery, Data-Centric Networking, Distributed Computing, Intermittent Connectivity) are discussed. [c.f. their MobiCom'99 paper.]
• SpaceTag Project at Kyoto University

4.2 Some Examples of Interesting Research Activities

Integrated Design of Smart Environments

• Swisshouse Program
  I thought they were building an interesting house somewhere in Boston. They probably talked about their visions at the 2nd International Workshop on Cooperative Buildings.
  
• The Adaptive House, Boulder, Colorado
  Michael Moser's group have constructed a prototype of a control system in an actual residence. The house is equipped with many sensors and actuators. The system which is based on neural network techniques etc. learns to manage heat, water, air heat, lighting and ventilation.
  
• Augmented Surfaces
  Developed at Sony CSL. A computer augmented environment allowing for spatially continuous operations across portable computers, table and wall displays, and other physical objects (videotapes, document folders, etc.). A window on a portable computer jumps out onto a table display (Hyperdragging) and the other way around. Pick and Drop operations can be done using Laser pointers. Digital Attachment links physical object like book pages to related digital objects. PropCamera on a table display creates 3D views on a wall display. [They also used a similar hardware environment to create Baseball Watching Station, assigning different kinds of information (TV broadcast, games, chat systems) concerning live baseball games. Kind of reminds me of the EDC environment at the University of Colorado.]
•  Vision system

Handheld Devices and CSCW

• NotePals at UC Berkeley
  This is a "Lightweight Meeting Support Using Personal Digital Assistants and Note-Taking Appliances". It automatically combines individual's meeting notes into a shared meeting record. An extension of NotePals may be used for supporting distributed collaborative learning.
  
• Integrating Information Appliances into an Interactive Workspace
  This is a part of the research activities at the Stanford Interactive Workspaces Project. Check the Pubilications section at the bottom of the page.
• TransVision
  Developed at Sony CSL. This system allows for sharing of computational media (3D models) using palmtop video-see-through displays. They discuss that this system can provide something fundamentally different from Shared Virtual Reality.
• IrChat, PocketWeb, etc. 
  Developed by PDA Developers Group at TecO, University of Karlsruhe. Using PDAs (like Apple Newton) for Chat, Web access, Electronic Conference Support, Tourism Support and Email.
• Pebbles Project at CMU
  cscw'98, CHI'00
• U Calgary Work
• Dr. Minenko's System

Infrastructure

• Networking for Smart Spaces Project and AirJava at NIST Information Technology Laboratory
  It seems that they are building a test bed to explore the use of Java, Jini, and multicast technology together with wireless systems (like Bluetooth and HomeRF) as a networking foundation for pervasive computing or smart spaces.
•  Dynamic Multi-Device Services
  Henrik Gustafsson at Ericsson Research discusses communications/ services for various information devices around us, at home and elsewhere. Mobile Cliproard is one of his activities, introducing various ActiveBadge-like devices.
• SECA (Smart Environment Control Architecture) at TecO, University of Karlsruhe
  I don't know exactly what this is. Looks like a sort of XML/WAP based directory/ naming service for controlling some devices.
• Middleware for Mobile Computing at TecO, University of Karlsruhe
  "addresses topics like Application Stability in mobile environments, Multimedia, Quality of Service, Bandwidth and cost awareness, application transparency and Security." 

SItuation/ Context/ Location Aware Computing

• Ubiquitous Location-Awareness
  This is a paper presented by Ulf Leonhardt of Imperial Collage at the 5th CaberNet Radicals Workshop.

Gesture

• Dynawall/ InteracTable
  Gestures for a Roomware environment. Suffle, Take, Put, Rotate, etc. 
• Visual Instruments for an Interactive Mural
  "presents a design for interacting with a prototype device combining a large, high-resolution wall-mounted display and an optically tracked laser pointer." This is a part of the research activities at the Stanford Interactive Workspaces Project. Check the Pubilications section at the bottom of the page.
• Pick and Drop: A Direct-manipulation Technique for Multiple-Computer Environments
  Proposed by Jun Rekimoto at Sony CSL. Simple gestures allow users to "pick" a digital object from one computer and "drop" it into another computer. GMD's DynaWall uses a similar interaction method for transporting data across multiple devices as well as within a large shared display device.
•  Tilting Interface for Small Screen Computers
  This is a web page at Sony CSL. Contains a few links to some information on the uses of tilt sensors in User Interfaces.

Walls

• DataWall 
  DataWall was designed at MIT Media Lab a number of years ago to realize seamless full-motion, ultra high-resolution projection display.

• DynaWall

• PowerWall

• Interactive Workspace at Stanford

• Research project at CREW, University of Michigan

Tables and Desks

Chairs

Capture and Access

• Classroom2000
• U Berlin's work
• ZombieBoard
• (French system @CoBuild99)
• Asobous
  This is not a research system but an interesiting commercial system. Their system is for capturing live sports events (baseball, golf, basketball, etc.) and broadcast the captured data along with TV broadcast (c.f. DataStudium). This kind of captured data may be used for interactive entertainment/ games (not just for watching the data) in the near future.

Information Appliance

• FieldMouse
  Developed at Sony CSL. FieldMouse is an interesting example of combining two different kinds of input technologies (a barcode reader and a motion sensor). It brings GUI components such as buttons, menus and sliders into the physical space. Some of this work, I think, was presented at the UIST'99 conference.
• Real World Programming (in Japanese)
  A concept for programming in the real world. 
• InfoPoint
  A direct-manipulation device for Inter-Appliance Computing developed at Sony CSL.
• E-Books @ FX PAL

Paper and Electronic Documents

• EnhancedDesk
• InteractiveDesk
• CHI97 session
• Matrix Method 
  A realtime object identification and registration method using 2D barcodes and video cameras. This method not only identifies IDs of physical objects but also detects their position and orientation. Useful for linking physical paper/books and electronic documents. Sony CSL's Augmented Reality Environments are developed using this technology.
• UbiquitousLinks
  Developed at Sony CSL. This system detects IDs of physical objects and then automatically retrieves corresponding web sites.

Tangble/ Tactile User Interface

• mediaBlocks
  An interesting system developed at MIT. People can transport and edit sequences of digital video clips using physical blocks.
  
• InformativeThing
• Passage
• EDC
• Bricks
• ThingsBoard
  Developed and available at Sony CSL. Electronic discussion forums are linked to IDs of physical objects (like JAN(EAN), ISBN, Magazine Code, CDDB ID).
• Tactual Display for Wearable Computing
  Tan, H.Z. and Pentland, A.: Tactual Dislay for Wearable Computing. Proc. of ISWC'97, pp84-89, 1997.-- Tactual displays may be a slower (in terms of bps) man-machine communication method than visual and/or audio displays. However, it may be a good "always ON" kind of output device that calls for users' attention when necessary. Also, like vibrating cell phones, it may not bother other people. This may be a display device that people could use while driving a car.
• Haptic Gear at Tokyo University (Hirose's group)

Vision-based System

• The Kids Room: An Interactive Narrative Playspace
  This is an interesting work by Perceptual Computing Group at the MIT Media Laboratory. They transformed a child's bedroom into a unique environment for fantasy play. A sophisticated vision system detects kids' positions and actions in the room and feed them to the narration control system. This seems to be one of the activities in the context of the Digital Life consortium.

Two-Handed Interaction / parallel Inputs

• Responsive Workbench
  This is a project at Stanford Computer Graphics Lab. It is based on a 3D interactive workspace developed at GMD. Using shutter glasses and 6DOF head trackers. One of their focuses is Two-Handed Manipulation.
• HoloWall
  An input technology for large interactive displays. Developed at Sony CSL. Unlike common touch sensitive surfaces, the display surface has (infrared) eyes that can see what is going on near the surface. Any objects that reflect infrared lights can be recognized by the system and used as system inputs. Allows for two-handed interaction.

Everyday Objects

• MediaCup
  Developed at TecO, University of Karlsruhe. Cofee cups augmented with sensing, processing and communication. For example, meetings in a room may be detected by monitoring activities of MediaCups. You may hear a beep sound when your coffee is too hot. Or a coffee machine may automatically start making coffee when MediaCups are running out of coffee.

Networking Distributed Physical Objects and Places

• Ambient Telepresence
  A project at TecO, University of Karlsruhe. Build on top of the MediaCup system. "Creates an ambient feeling of the presence of a distant person" by transferring ambient events like "cup events" and then interpreting them as noise conditions.

Web and UbiComp

• UbicompBrowser
  Using a handheld computer and various output devices (e.g., display devices), people can access/control the Web. Web contents are dispatched to appropriate devices using the location information of handheld computers. New families of URLs are defined for local devices like TV, radio and light.
• UbiquitousLinks

Home Automation

Experiment Capture

Health Monitoring

5 Enabling Technologies

5.1 General

• IBM Pervasive Computing

5.2 Handheld/ Wearable Device

• QBE tochscreen computer
• Epson Locatio
  Integrated PDA, Camera, GPS and PHS.
• Fujitsu Stylistics
• RocketBook
• Info Viewer
• i-mode
  Popular email/ web cell phone in Japan. Its micro web browser uses a subset of HTML3.2 (not WAP). A number of "i-mode website" written in this markup languate are emerging rapidly. Technical details presented in IPSJ magazine 40-9. 
• Palm Pilot
• Visor
• Sony's Palm OS Device
  Handheld device for entertainment.
• Pocket PC
• Twiddler
  Handkey manufactures this famous one-handed keyboard.
• Five-finger grip keyboard
  This device seems to be made by Adam Oranchak
• FingerRing
  NTT Human Interface Lab uses accelerometers embedded in rings to create an invisible keyboard. (5-bit chord inputs)
• UbiButton
  Similar to FingerRing but uses only one finger -- like keying Morse codes. Developed at NTT DoCoMo Multimedia Lab.
• SEIKO UC-2000
  "Arm computer" which was commercially available in 1984.
• SEIKO Ruputer
  Wrist watch PC. Users can develop applications for this device using GNU tools. Related article in IPSJ Magazine 40-9.
• DataSlim
  A PDA which is a PCMCIA TypeII card
• IBM Wearable PC Prototype
  Developed at IBM Japan, Ltd. It is pocket-size, runs Windows OS and makes the functionality of current PCs available as much as possible. Uses special light-weight see-through HMD B/W 320x240, microphone, Microdrive (340MB), CompactFlash, MMX Pentium 233MHz, based on ThnkPad 560X, 449g,  64MB memory, USB, IrDA, one-handed pointing device (trackPoint). Applications include instruction support at factories etc. Some issues are: Better batteries (currently only 2hours operation), better display, better storage device and communication speed, new UIs beyond Windows. Related article in IPSJ Magazine 40-9.

5.3 Display Technology

• SMART board
  Large computer screen with touch-sensitive inputs. Can use pens and/or fingers. Rear-projection and front-projection models are available. This device is used in a number of research projects including i-Land and EDC.
  ( Some technical details: Touch is detected by using register based technology. When two points are pressed at the same time, the system recognizes the middle point between the two points -- this makes it difficult to create a single-device groupware systems using this device. Other companies' devices have similar restrictions regarding multi-person inputs on a single device. For example, SoftBoard gives DSP Error when two points are pressed simultaneously. )

• SoftBoard

• Electronic Paper
  Paper-like flexible display devices coming soon
  - Electronic Reusable Paper at Xerox PARC.
  - Electronic Ink at E Ink. (Immedia products are already available.)
  - Also, some Japanese companies including TDK will probably manufacture E-paper in the near future.

• MicroOptical's HMD
  The one that looks like regular glasses

• VRD (Virtual Retinal Display)
  research project at the University of Washington

5.4 Automatic Identification

• RFID
  - Tag-it system can read multiple tags by a reader.
  - RFID source book
• RTLS
  - 3D-iD local positioning system
• GPS
• Casio's Wrist Watch GPS
• Barcode System
• Electronic Scale
• Sony Vaio Note CyberCode system
• PHS location system
• Java Card
  Smart cards that implement the Java Runtime environment. It is now possible to run multiple applications on one JavaCard. Typical hardware resources of Smart cards (in 1999) are, for example, CPU=8bit (up to 32bit), RAM=512bit (up to 4KB), ROM=20KB (up to 32KB), EEPROM=8KB (up to 64KB).
• iButton
  The iButtonE is a 16mm computer chip armored in a stainless steel can. It's used by the US Postal Office. Potential applications are described here. This company sells some other interesting stuff including TINI embedded web server and electric bicycle with an IP address, Weather Station, and Java Ring. According to this website, iButton springbaard module for Handspring Visor will be available in the future.