“The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.                     [Mark Weiser]

Introduction: The Notion of Ubiquitous Computing
The notion of ubiquitous computing (“ubicomp”) denotes the “third-wave of computing”. In the first wave, many users were connected to a single mainframe computers using “dumb” terminal, only capable of very simple input/ output actions. In the second wave - and we are currently in that phase - each user utilizes her own computer (the “personal” computer). 

The third era in computing will be “ubiquitous computing” [Mark Weiser, 1991], also sometimes referred to as “the age of calm technology”, where computers recede into the background of  our lives.

Some Issues in Ubiquitous Computing

Technological Issues:

• Communication Infrastructures for mobile entities (e.g., Bluetooth)
• Sensors

Methodological Issues:

• Context-aware computing (e.g., event-based context architectures)
• (Design) Rationale Methods (potentially)

Other related topics:

• Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
• Business impact (mobile/ubiquitous commerce, mCommerce)
• Social Implications (security, privacy)

An Applications for Ubicomp: “iBistro”
iBistro is an augmented meeting space for informal collaboration and communication in distributed software engineering. An informal meeting in “iBistro” is a meeting that is neither planned nor has a predefined process associated with it. By informal, we understand the seamless integration of iBistros' services into an everyday coffee room meeting, thereby becoming part of the “fabric and web” [Mark Weiser, 1991] of such an informal meeting. People use iBistros' services unconsciously and anywhere to accomplish an everyday meeting - therefore iBistro is an ubiquitous application.

iBistro aims at supporting informal meetings in a distributed environment between two continents, just over the street, or even within the same room.  In addition, iBistro supports asynchronous collaboration by enabling participants to improve the content and the structure of meeting minutes.

The “Hauptseminar”
Each participants answers a given research issue that can be selected from a given list. Attendant research papers will be provided. Each participant will have a short presentation (no longer than 45 minutes) with three parts, 15 minutes each:
Part 1:         Summary of the content of the paper
Part 2:         Review and criticism of the paper (what’s good, what’s bad)
Part 3:         Future directions, your own ideas (How is the content related to one of the research issues? How can we leverage the presented ideas? What is the application and/or business impact of the presented research?)

Each presentation is followed by a short discussion among all the participants.

Some References
Mark Weiser, 1991, “The Computer for the 21st Century”, http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/SciAmDraft3.html.
Mark Weiser, 1993, “Some Computer Science Issues in Ubiquitous Computing”, http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/UbiCACM.html.
 
 

Büro: Raum 3215 

• die/der regelmässig bei den wöchentlichen Vorträgen anwesend war 
• die/der selbst einen Vortrag (ca. 45 min.) gehalten hat und 
• die/der ein Handout zu dem Vortrag verfaßt hat