COMPUTING
Ubiquitous Computing can be thought of as the idea of invisible computers everywhere. Specifically, it is the idea that computers are embedded in the environment, with literally dozens or hundreds of computers available to each person, and each computer performing its tasks without requiring human awareness or a large amout of human intervention. If the mainframe represents the era of "many people, one computer", and the PC is the era of "one person, one computer", then ubiquitous computing can be thought of as the era of "one person, many computers". Right now, we work in a time where computers are important, but highly demanding of our attention. We require months (or years) or training to use them properly, we tinker with them constantly in order to make them work properly and to get the best performance out of them, and we still think of their use as a separate, distinct task. What will eventually happen is that computers will fade into the background and become invisible, much in the same way that electricity has, or the way that electrical motors have. When a person goes through their typical day, then encounter, literally, dozens of basic uses of electricity: The alarm clock that wakes them up, the light bul
For ubiquitous computing to succeed, programs will need to be the same way: An easily transferable entity, written in a universal format. The problem for such a setup is that the individual devices do not share information, and each device requires its own training. Text files can be trivially moved from one computer to another, no matter which operating system is running: Unix, Windows, Mac, OS/2, etc. Microphone take care of recording speech, and cameras record the activities in the room, using motion sensors as a guideline on what to record. Application IssuesOne of the major advantages of using a system such as InfoPad would be that much of the data could be realtime, which requires an application system that allows for processes and data to "come to" a terminal without requiring any other software on the terminal ahead of time. One of the most direct applications of smart matter would be the application of "Digital Ink", the embedding of microcells into paper that are capable of changing color. Rather than the person going to the software, the software will need to go to the person, and as a result, programs will need to be able to flow freely from computer to computer, without requiring that each computer make fundamental changes to its own configuration in order to run the new program. The advent of digital ink would replace it all with "intelligent paper", which would retain all the advantages of standard paper, such as tangibility, compactness, and easy reuse. As an example of the network requirements that the World will face, a recent study by MCI estimated that the worldwide amount of data traffic will overtake the amount of existing voice traffic within three years, with the percentage only increasing in the future. The usage of software will need to become "stateless", where each program is always ready to perform its given function at any time, without needing to be configured first. In order for the project to achieve its goals, it is performing research in the following areas: Terminal IssuesThe primary issues for the mobile terminals is how to keep the create a device with a good display quality and responsiveness to user input, even while keeping the costs of the device low. One of the key ideas of ubiquitous computing is that computers should become invisible, and that they should provide information to the user in the user's own terms. As an example of the sort of interation made possible by this technology, a reactive environment could record all of the elements of a meeting, so that separate note-taking is no longer necessary. As a result, the information is stored in a non-intuitive manner, thus causing the user to lose track of the location of files, overwrite newer versions of files with older versions, accidentally delete directories containing important files etc.
Common topics in this essay:
Moore's Law,
Ubiquitous Computing,
Digital Ink,
Reactive Environment,
Computing Research,
Zilog StrongArm,
Microelectromechanical Systems,
Electrical En,
Embedde GPS,
Mac OS/2,
ubiquitous computing,
computing devices,
smart matter,
user able,
programming interface,
ideas ubiquitous,
ideas ubiquitous computing,
mobile terminals,
able access data,
current research,
computing research,
user data input,
infopad project,
user able access,
ubiquitous computing happen,
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Acceptance Essays
