1 Enabling Pervasive Computing Become Truly Pervasive Dr. Joseph Loyall BBN Technologies March 3, 2009 Research Directions in Situational-aware Self-managed Proactive Computing in Wireless Ad hoc Networks

2 What are the grand challenge applications (3 to 4) in the pervasive computing domain today?  Access to and control of all aspects of your life from anywhere –Requires constant connectivity –Not just access to and phone, but also your home, family, car, restaurant reservations, what’s happening up ahead, entertainment  Information on demand, provided proactively –Directions to where you need to go, traffic, construction and rerouting –Answers to questions in anticipation (never forget a person’s name again) –Your own personal assistant and encyclopedic knowledge at the speed of thought  Fewer devices, more intuitive interfaces –Why does the ordinary person have tiny screens; what happened to HUDs? –Why does everything need to be typed in? keyboards get smaller as our fingers get fatter.

3 What technological barriers prevent pervasive computing from becoming truly pervasive?  Don’t want to have to think in terms of devices, but instead about capabilities or functionality –Ease of use is key –Mobility is key, applications should follow you around  Still need to pull a device (cell phone, PDA, Ipod, laptop) out of your pocket, look at it, and type on it to use it –Your car is a big computer (actually lots of them), why doesn’t it take over all the duties of your computer when you get in it –Devices, connectivity, and applications seamlessly following us around as we move  Connectivity is still spotty –Why can’t our Internet connectivity move from device to device and WAP to WAP as seamlessly as our cell phone moves from tower to tower –Middleware, applications, devices need to hide the “seams” better from the user –Middleware and devices need to manage and control the limited and unreliable connectivity so that drops and degradation is hidden from the user  Interfaces –Still dominated by screens and keyboards –Proactive, autonomic computing should remove the need for much human input Luke Skywalker didn’t type a single command into R2D2 yet got the information he needed when he needed it –Think of the success enabled by systems that captured an appropriate user metaphor Excel, IPod, TIVO

4 What are the particular challenges from the networking and data mgmt perspectives?  Device capabilities (processing, memory, secondary store) has outstripped the available connectivity and bandwidth.  Still don’t have code mobility, WORA –It’s much better than it used to be, but you still can’t run the same apps on your PDAs as on your desktop –Still significant challenges with versions, synchronizing data, etc.  Although there are more information and services at your fingertips, it still takes effort to get what you need –It’s hard to remember life before Google, but still many situations where crafting a search query and looking through pages of results is unwieldy –Data management based on search and response, with the analysis, selection, filtering burden on the user is not conducive to pervasive computing  Information and service access are not context-aware, proactive –Computers and devices still do what you tell them to, not what you want

5 Societal issues that need to be addressed to enable people-centric design of pervasive systems? (1/2)  Recognizing the innovation associated with some incremental achievements… –Tivo is disk IO hooked up to a TV listing interface and TV display An integration of existing mature technologies Yet revolutionized TV viewing (and the economics of advertising) –IPod is a disk drive, file listing, and display, and a trivial user input device –Would be unlikely to be published or funded by research funding organizations

6 Societal issues that need to be addressed to enable people-centric design of pervasive systems? (2/2)  Mediating the tension between the all purpose device versus a new device for each purpose. Shimmer is both a floor wax and a dessert topping!

7 How to re-design curriculum towards next-generation scientists with inter-disciplinary training suitable to tackle a wide spectrum of problems in pervasive computing?  Classes that combine disciplines traditionally taught separately –Middleware, operating systems –Applications that run on multiple devices, i.e., desktop and small devices –Context-aware, adaptive, network management  Classes and disciplines that focus on –The use and benefit of provided capabilities, hiding the specifics of computers –Removing complexity, increasing mobility and functionality –Simplifying human experience with computers