1. EECS Research into the Post-PC Era
David Culler
U.C. Berkeley
Feb 25, 1999

2. Natural Tides of Innovation??
Integration
Personal Computer
Workstation
Server
Log R
Minicomputer
Mainframe
Time
2/99
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3. Exciting components
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4. Historical Perspective
New eras of computing start when the previous era is so strong it is hard to imagine that things could ever be different
mainframe -> mini
mini -> workstation -> PC
PC -> ???
It is always smaller than what came before.
Most think of the new technology as “just a toy”
The new dominant use was almost completely absent before.
Technology spread increases
So where are we headed in the post-PC era?
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5. Away from the “average device”
Powerful, personal capabilities from specialized devices
small, highly mobile or embedded in the environment
Intelligence + immense storage and processing in the infrastructure
Everything connected
Devices
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Laptops, Desktops

6. Imagine You walk into a room
Your PDA connects to the local infrastructure and asks it to build a custom GUI
You walk into a room
Next, your PDA asks the infrastructure for a path out to your personal information space, where agents are processing your , v-mail, faxes, and pages
You have complete, secure, optimized access to local devices and your private resources
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7. Internet-Scale Systems Perspective
~10 Billion of Information Appliances
~100 Million of Stationary Computers
~Million Scalable Servers
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8. Complement to industry efforts
Get maximum number of applications first
1990 PC capality in handheld device
microkernel port of Unix or Windows
emulate vast API
Turn devices into appliances
Mobile extension of dedicated PC
take short excursion and synch
Success of the Palm Pilot with primitive OS and split application model is significant
it’s the approach, not the technical superiority
Need to develop foundations for next generation
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9. Seeds sewn in many projects
Devices - Infopad, IRAM
Scalable Servers - NOW, Millennium
Storage - Tertiary Disk, Istore, Aetherstore
Sensors and Actuators - BSAC
Connectivity - BWRC
Transcoding Services - Wingman, Mediaboard
Platform Architecture - Ninja
Computing/Telephony Integration - Iceberg
Programming Enviornments and Tools
User interfaces - Notepals
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10. Building the Bazaar
What we need is not just a new research project, but a new “computing culture”
=> Build a department-wide, universal wireless PDA infrastructure and a community to take it forward
Initial Seed Fall 98 with IBM
150+ IBM workpads + lots of cradles + IR + ???
Initial community
Ninja, ICEBERG, MASH grad students
Senior UI Class (CS 160)
All interested 1st year CS grads (CS 252, 261, 262 projects)
Fill out based on interest, talent and availability
=> “ask a good question and get yours” seminar
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11. Fall’98 Project Excerpts
E-Commerce and Security
Pay-Per-Use Services on the Palm Computing Platform (Mike Chen, Andrew Geweke)
Secure Infrastructure for PDAs (Hoon Kang, Rob von Behren)
SyncAnywhere - Secure Network HotSync (Mike Chen, Helen Wang)
Groupware
Kiretsu - Ninja Instant Messaging Service (Matt Welsh, Steve Gribble)
The MASH MediaPad - Shared Electronic Whiteboard for the PalmPilot (Yatin Chawathe)
NotePals - Lightweight Meeting Support Using PDAs (Richard Davis)
OSKI - Open Shared Kalendaring Infrastructure (Jason Hong, Brad Morrey, Mark Newman)
OS and Communications
PalmRouter - Networking Sporadically Connected Devices (Andras Ferencz, Robert Szewczyk)
Numerous Architecture Studies
Excellent UI Projects
Ink Chat, Nutrition/Excercise Tracker, Rendezvous - Meeting Scheduler
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12. Some Lessons Communication is enabling
low-power wireless needs to be like IP
Virtual Environment is important
Devices connect “into the infrastructure”
Network HotSync, groupware, centralized
=> Need lean, clean communication substrate
“User Service” is fundamental
not just profile and customization info
routing point for security
Much room for improvement in devices
trade BW for compute or storage
Development effort is the limiting factor
OSKI: 1 person for infrastructure, 2 for WorkPad
=> need complete distributed system debugging and simulation environment
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13. Momentum Building Deploy postPC infrastructure throughout building
Gigabit Ethernet
PDAs
Cell Phones
Future Devices
Wireless
Infrastructure
Desktop
PCs
Servers
Clusters
Massive Cluster
Deploy postPC infrastructure throughout building
Millennium provides large-scale testbed
Ninja architecture allows developers to “Push Services into the Infrastructure”
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14. Oceanic Vision: fluid software
devices everywhere
backed by massive, fluid data storage and composible services
operating systems for vastly diverse devices
down to sensors and actuators
streaming data management
data derived from sensors and activities, not key entry
incremental query
automated negotiation architecture
derive organization from activities
social networking
computational economies
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15. Roles, Collaboration, and Environment
Bold, Rich PostPC Agenda Emerging
New balance of expertise and technology between industry and university
devices, components, networks, applications, users
New roles and relationships in collaboration
how do we share space, environment, culture, not just technology
Fundamentally new demands on the research space
ability to deploy smart spaces on a large scale
experimental wireless networking
new modes of human interaction
It’s not just what we build, but how we use it
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