Utility Of Ubiquitous Computing

The term ubiquitous implies that technology is everywhere and we use it all the time. ubiquitous computing is global and local, social and personal, public and private, invisible and visible, an aspect of both knowledge creation and information dissemination. Ubiquitous computing is changing our daily activities in a variety of ways such as communicate in different ways, conceive and use geographical and temporal spaces differently.This paper discuss on applications of ubiquitous computing. It identifies different application areas such as Communications, Logistics, E-commerce, Inner security.

Introduction: The word "ubiquitous" can be defined as "existing or being everywhere at the same time," "constantly encountered," and "widespread." When applying this concept to technology, the term ubiquitous implies that technology is everywhere and we use it all the time. Because of the pervasiveness of these technologies, we tend to use them without thinking about the tool. Instead, we focus on the task at hand, making the technology effectively invisible to the user. Ubiquitous technology is often wireless, mobile, and networked, making its users more connected to the world around them and the people in it.

The idea behind ubiquitous computing is to surround ourselves with computers and software that are carefully tuned to offer us unobtrusive assistance as we navigate through our work and personal lives. Contrast this with the world of computers as we know them now. Some are very obtrusive remember the car that called out, “Door is ajar… Door is ajar…” until someone finally kicked the door shut? Others attempt to offer assistance but deliver only frustration, like that new Web camera’s automatic installation routine that didn’t quite perform the entire configuration necessary and didn’t offer any guidance on what else needed to be done. We are caught in an interesting trap. On one hand, we are beguiled by the promise of greater productivity and convenience.

On the other, we are frustrated by tools that are brittle and unintuitive. Though much software is easier to use than ever, it feels as though we are far from the science fiction dream of unobtrusive computers that let us work naturally and that operate as seamless extensions of our personal work styles. There is hope, however. The ubiquitous computing movement is focused on this seemingly distant vision and may help us achieve the greater productivity that sits with it on the horizon. We’ll start our discussion by reviewing the technology and themes underlying ubiquitous computing. We’ll then describe a vision of how these may play out in the workplace, followed by some implications we see for I-O psychology. Finally, for readers interested in delving deeper into the world of ubiquitous computing, we will list some resources offering additional information.

What is ubiquitous computing? An exciting new approach to serving us with technology? A difficult yet rewarding technical challenge? A concern for privacy advocates? A good tool in the
 
right hands, and an oppressive one in other hands? To help us answer these questions, this essay examines the current definition of ubiquitous computing, its development, including the key people and places influencing its development, and finally some concerns raised by this new approach for putting technology and people together.



What is Ubiquitous Computing: As defined ubiquitous computing environments as learning environments in which all peoples have access to a variety of digital devices and services, including computers connected to the Internet and mobile computing devices, whenever and wherever they need them. Our notion of ubiquitous computing, then, is more focused on many-to-many than one-to-one or one-to-many, and includes the idea of technology being always available but not itself the focus of learning. ubiquitous computing includes the idea that both teachers and students are active participants in the learning process, who critically analyze information, create new knowledge in a variety of ways (both collaboratively and individually), communicate what they have learned , and choose which tools are appropriate for a particular task.

Ubiquitous computing is changing our daily activities in a variety of ways. When it comes to using today's digital tools users tend to
•    communicate in different ways
•    be more active
•    conceive and use geographical and temporal spaces differently
•    have more control
In addition, ubiquitous computing is
•    global and local
•    social and personal
•    public and private
•    invisible and visible
•    an aspect of both knowledge creation and information dissemination
•   
Ubiquitous computing (often abbreviated to “ubicomp”) refers to a new genre of computing in which the computer completely permeates the life of the user. In ubiquitous computing, computers become a helpful but invisible force, assisting the user in meeting his or her needs without getting in the way.

Ubiquitous computing, or calm technology, is a paradigm shift where technology becomes virtually invisible in our lives. Instead of having a desk-top or lap-top machine, the technology we use will be embedded in our environment. we have the following description: imagine a world with hundreds of wireless computing devices of different sizes in the same room. In order to bring this type of computing out into the environment, among the things we need to rethink are user interfaces, displays, operating systems, networks, and wireless communications.

These rethinking demands a radical departure from the tradition of putting machines out for our use, and having us adapt to them. Instead, in the world of ubiquitous computing, technology will be implicit in our lives, built in to the things we use, including the spaces. The proponents of this technology hold that this type of computing will be a more natural tool, and thus a more.

At their core, all models of ubiquitous computing (also called pervasive computing) share a vision of small, inexpensive, robust networked processing devices, distributed at all scales throughout everyday life and generally turned to distinctly common-place ends. For example, a domestic ubiquitous computing environment might interconnect lighting and environmental controls with personal biometric monitors woven into clothing so that illumination and heating conditions in a room might be modulated, continuously and imperceptibly. Another common scenario posits refrigerators "aware" of their suitably-tagged contents, able to both plan a variety of menus from the food actually on hand, and warn users of stale or spoiled food.

Ubiquitous computing presents challenges across computer science: in systems design and engineering, in systems modeling, and in user interface design. Contemporary human-computer interaction models, whether command-line, menu-driven, or GUI-based, are inappropriate and inadequate to the ubiquitous case. This suggests that the "natural" interaction paradigm appropriate to a fully robust ubiquitous computing has yet to emerge - although there is also recognition in the field that in many ways we are already living in an ubicomp world. Contemporary devices that lend some support to this latter idea include mobile phones, digital audio players, radio-frequency identification tags, GPS, and interactive whiteboards.

There are three basic forms for ubiquitous system devices, see also Smart device: tabs, pads and boards.
•    Tabs: wearable centimeter sized devices
•    Pads: hand-held decimeter-sized devices
•    Boards: meter sized interactive display devices.

These three forms proposed by Weiser are characterized by being macro-sized, having a planar form and on incorporating visual output displays. If we relax each of these three characteristics we can expand this range into a much more diverse and potentially more useful range of Ubiquitous Computing devices. Hence, three additional forms for ubiquitous systems have been proposed:
•    Dust: miniaturized devices can be without visual output displays, e.g., Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS), ranging from nanometers through micrometers to millimeters. See also Smart dust.
•    Skin: fabrics based upon light emitting and conductive polymers, organic computer devices, can be formed into more flexible non-planar display surfaces and products such as clothes and curtains, see OLED display. MEMS device can also be painted onto various surfaces so that a variety of physical world structures can act as networked surfaces of MEMS.
•    Clay: ensembles of MEMS can be formed into arbitrary three dimensional shapes as artifacts resembling many different kinds of physical object.

There is an ongoing shift from already-decentralized, stand-alone microcomputers and mainframes towards entirely pervasive computing. In his model of a pervasive computing system, Castells uses the example of the Internet as the start of a pervasive computing system. The logical progression from that paradigm is a system where that networking logic becomes applicable in every realm of daily activity, in every location and every context. Castells envisages a system where billions of miniature, ubiquitous inter-communication devices will be spread worldwide, "like pigment in the wall paint"

Nanotechnology and Wireless Technology: If computers are to be everywhere, unobtrusive, and truly helpful, they must be as small as possible and capable of communicating between them-selves. Technological movements supporting these goals are already well underway under the rubrics nanotechnology and wireless computing.

Nanotechnology: The trend toward miniaturization of computer components down to an atomic scale is known as nanotechnology. Nanotechnology involves building highly miniaturized computers from individual atoms or molecules acting as transistors, which are the heart of the computer chip. The number of transistors in a chip is indicative of its power. Therefore, nanotechnologies extreme miniaturization of transistors allows for impressive levels of com-putting power to be put into tiny packages, which can then be unobtrusively tucked away.

Wireless Computing: Wireless computing refers to the use of wireless technology to connect computers to a network. Wireless computing is so attractive because it allows workers to escape the tether of a network cable and access network and communication services from anywhere within reach of a wireless net-work. Wireless computing has attracted enormous market interest, as wit-nessed by consumer demand for wireless home networks, which can be purchased for several hundred dollars. The second author has a three-computer wireless network in his home.

Context-Awareness and Natural Interaction: Small computers that communicate wirelessly provide a necessary infra-structure for ubiquitous computing. However, infrastructure is only half of the battle. As noted above, the ubiquitous computing movement aims to make computers more helpful and easier to use. Indeed, computers should be able to accurately anticipate the user’s needs and accommodate his or her natural communication modes and styles.

Embedded Hardware and Systems: Embedded hardware support, system-on-a-chip (SOC), embedded system architecture, hardware/software co-design, real-time systems, power and energy-aware designs, testing and verification, sensor networks, application-specific processors, wearable computers/devices, etc.

Ubiquitous Networking and Intelligent Services: Ubiquitous wired and wireless networks, intelligent network, ad hoc networking, intelligent sensor network, ubiquitous/pervasive platform and middleware, automated and adapted service, situated service, open service architecture, intelligent web service, intelligence service grid, etc.

Ubiquitous Interaction and Intelligent Management: Natural and palpable interfaces to invisible computers, spontaneous and continuous interaction, user intention/demand anticipation and proactive computing, self-management system and autonomic computing, organic computing, sustainable computing, intelligence scalability, etc.

Embedded Software and Intelligence: Embedded related operating system, compiler, assembler, middleware, software architecture and design, memory management, scheduling, embedded agent, embedded learning/reasoning program, embedded communication and networking, etc.

Smart Objects and Environments: Smart artifact/appliance/material, smart label and card, smart textile and cloth, smart furniture, smart home and office, smart laboratory and factory, smart classroom and school, smart hospital and health care, aware room and building, smart road and vehicle, intelligent environment, smart hyperspace, smart platform and middleware, novel smart applications, etc.

Context-aware Computing: Context acquisition and representation, context media processing, context database, context management, context framework and middleware, context analysis and utilization, location-aware application, power-aware system, resource-aware computation, self-aware computers and systems, etc.

Real and Cyber World Semantics: Real world models and semantic representations, real world reasoning, user activity recognition and prediction, relations between real and cyber spaces, cyber world ontology and axiom, web/cyber semantics, web intelligence, etc.

Ubiquitous Intelligence Modeling: Distributed artificial intelligence (DAI), distributed soft computing, natural/biological modeling for ubiquitous intelligence, multi-agent modeling approach, massive multi-agent system, heterogeneous intelligence management and collaborations, intelligence competition and evolution, amorphous computing, spray computing, etc.

Ubiquitous Privacy and Trust: Privacy issues in ubiquitous society, privacy regulation and low, privacy intrusion automatic detection, privacy protection framework and infrastructure, identity and behavior trust, trust model and measure, risk estimation, trust management, security technology for privacy and trust guarantee, etc.

Ubiquitous Intelligence Implications and Social Factors: Meaning and impact of ubiquitous intelligence, social implications of ubiquitous intelligence and smart world, positive and negative sides of ubiquitous computing, ethical issues, training, policy and legal issues, economic and culture impacts, psychological and emotional factors, politeness in computational intelligence, etc.

Conclusion: Building a ubiquitous computing environment, and interacting with its ser-vices on a regular basis, has proven highly valuable to understand the basic requirements to support this distributed computing model. We have identified five design guidelines we con-sider essential to support ubiquitous computing environments: low-level system support, boot-strapping, scripting, application development and management support, and end-user support. We presented our Active Seminar application suite, which demonstrated the flexibility and generality of our infrastructure. Additionally, the Active Seminar application suites demon-started the rapid prototyping and development capabilities that the infrastructure supports. Overall, the user experience was very positive and the space usability was intuitive.

References:

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