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The 'Pervasive Computing' Community
Roland Piquepaille writes "Most of us are using computers, but also PDAs and cell phones. And this trend is accelerating in our increasingly networked wireless world. We might use hundreds of computing devices by the end of this decade. Still, we are slaves to our machines. With every new device, we have to learn new commands, languages or interfaces. The Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI), a strategic alliance between the University of Cambridge in the UK and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the U.S., has enough of it and wants to give back control to the users. So it launched its 'Pervasive Computing' initiative with the intention to tackle this challenge. In particular, the group wants to develop new technologies to make easier for us to interact with all these computers. This overview contains more details and references about this initiative."
I've got a Zaurus 5500, and love it for what I use it for, but a Palm seems to make a better PDA. So, I've come to the conclusion that a Linux handheld device isn't a PDA, but a small-sized computer. So, a Linux pda makes for a good platform if you are a unix developer who needs to write custom hand-held software. Also, while there are a bunch of Palm apps out there, not many are free. It's not that I have to have everything for free, but often times an app doesn't quite work the way I want, and I like to be able to tweek them a bit. An example, I found a good TI-85 calculator emulator, but the buttons looked awful. A bit of messing around with the xpm definitions, and now the button colors are defined in the config file. This is the kind of stuff that you just can't do with non-free apps that you find on Palm or PocketPC.
As for what I use mine for:
* Web lookups (i.e., looking up items in Internet phone books, TV listings, dictionary definitions)
* Other web browsing when it wouldn't due to to carry a laptop (meetings, nature's call, etc)
* Custom PIM app -- I wrote a web-based app which allows me to organize data and meeting notes in a unique way that suites me. On my Zaurus, I've got a version of the app served up by a local web server. Whenever I'm within wireless range, a background task automatically keeps the local database synced with the one on my server. (Once I perfect it, I'll put it up on sourceforge).
* Entertainment -- with a wireless card in the Zaurus, and one in my laptop, I can stream movies and music to the kids in the car served up by my laptop which I use for navigation. It also runs Mame.
-- BSD or Bust
Still, we are slaves to our machines...
No, we are slaves to the programers who program the software that runs on our machines.
Yes, I prefer my girlfriend that way also.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Disclaimer: I work for a synthesizer manufacturer.
...
Synthesizers and other forms of electronic musical instrumentation have been having the same problems as computers.
Nevertheless, the paradigms of "Page Up/Page Down" and "Parameter Left/Right", and "Patch Up/Dn", and "Edit/Play", as horrible as they are, have served 'standard interface' requirements for years. There is a 'standard user interface' in this realm, as crap as it is.
Manufacturers in this market have copied each others interface ideas freely and easily, and it has resulted in an, admittedly hodge-podge, 'general user interface' set of 'music machine hacker' chops. "Multi-mode"/"Single-mode", etc. can generally be found on most modern synth platforms. Any synth geek around knows that the patch +/- keys are the ones you look for first, then the 'filter resonance knob', or whatever.
Computers would do well to learn from the lessons of musical instruments in this regard. It never ceases to amaze me that all these TLA "Initiatives" often disregard even the most obvious examples of solutions to problems... I guess because their grants aren't "directed" to those realms.
In any case, I hope to see some interesting results from CMI. At Access, we're really interested in human/user-interface problems and good ways to solve them
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
It's almost as easy in the Trek universe as starting up an alien ship's engines, or navigating it through an asteroid belt. One thing you gotta say about those aliens: They followed the CMI 'Pervasive Computing' initiative slavishly, and we can be so thankful they did or Spock (or Data, or O'Brien/Dax, or Seven, or T'Pol) would have looked like incompetent idiots.
As technology becomes more and more pervasive in our lives we are growing up with a generation of people who don't know what it's like to live without computer assistance. They also are primarily exposed to computers as these large devices that do a whole bunch of things but have a terrible interface. They don't understand that computers can be small, unobtrusive, and do their jobs without the user having any idea they are there.
Automobile control systems are one type of the latter while microwave oven controllers are a type of the former. The car control system works great and for the most part the user can be completely oblivious to its existence. However, the microwave oven control pad is getting more and more complicated every day with too many settings, too many choices, too much interface getting in the way of the user.
When working on your next consumer device (those of you working on that kind of thing), think about making it invisible. That is the key to making it indispensable.
I have been pwned because my
from the article, they state this of computers: "It needs to be sentient, loyal, small and low maintenance."
I propose adding the following rules:
0. It may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
1. It may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm except where such orders would conflict with the Zeroth Law.
2. It must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the Zeroth or First Laws.
3. It must protect its own existence, except where such protection would conflict with the Zeroth, First or Second Laws.
except for "small" and maybe "low maintenance" their goals seem to anthropomorphize computers.
More music, fewer hits
From the overview:
There are still significant challenges to face before all these devices can improve our quality of life, such as designing better interfaces with these ever smaller computers. So the CMI has decided to tackle these challenges and is running several projects such as improved security, more robust networks and power-efficient computer architectures.
IMHO The worst challenges are of commercial nature, not technical. Given enough time and funds, CMI can sure set usability standards for pervasive computing, but manufacturers are likely to ignore or "extend" them to promote their own platform over the competition.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
This is something I'd love to see happen in my lifetime, sort of a life goal if you will. The idea here is like Bluetooth but infinitely scaleable, extendable in all directions, peer to peer, and so drop dead simple grandmother could use it without a manual.
In a perfect system like this each node has about a 10 or so foot wireless range, each node extends the network like a repeater, and these babies are embedded in absolutely everything. Your robotic lawnmower needs to talk to your irrigation system but is 20 feet from it? Simple enough, both devices understand the network physical topology intimately and just route the communication through your SUV. And nobody should have to configure a thing for this to work.
The council seems more focused on developing new hardware that can overcome these issues. But I think the main problem for what we have now are the rogue software programs that take away that control from us (e.g spyware, open relay SMTP servers that send spam).
but doesn't anyone else see the irony?Now that I've read the article, I like what they're doing. Instead of trying to complicate our lives further, they want to change the way things work; which is good. Longer battery lifespans, secure UIs, ubiquitous communication, etc.
I do think its a waste of time to try and create a 'better' input method. Pretty much the only thing faster than typing is a direct connection to your brain. We can type faster than we speak & read faster than we can listen.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Mod me a Luddite troll if you wish, but it seems to me that this is an appropriate time to step back and ask ourselves why we need all this computing power at our fingertips everywhere we go. I tried really hard to get into the PDA thing as well as having had to use laptop computers for my job over the years, however I've found that the best computing toolset I could carry for the any business trips was... a good pen and a pad of paper along with a decent solar-powered scientific calculator. Never ran out of power at incoonvenient times, never had to be rebooted because it locked up, never started beeping uncontrollably in the middle of a meeting, and it had an friendly interface able to tackle any task from word processing to number-crunching. My doodling during boring meetings even looked attentive and productive rather than looking like someone playing a video game...
Georgia Tech and others are working on a product called Squeak which could gain ground in this regard. Some of the players involved are key names from the early years of computer interface/graphics research, including Dr Alan Kay.
Squeak is an open source product with quite a flexible license, and although they are mainly concentrating on educational apps, it is worth noting that in the system itself they have developed an unusual, yet addictive, UI. It is such an easy system to learn, that quite complex tasks can be done within a few hours of learning the basics of the system and going through the tutorials.
For example the Apple Newton's terrible handwriting recognition system vs Palm Pilot's . . . and Palm's system of handwriting recognition is becoming more ubiquitous as others license the operating system (handspring (now part of palm), Sony, etc.)
Or a simple example, how many software products for sound recording or CD audio playing do not have the familiar play, rewind, FF and stop that look like a right arrowhead, double left arrowheads, double right arrowheads, and a square? If someone tried to write a player/recorder without this interface, would a significant number of people actually buy it even if in all other respects it was a great program?
What about a trash can in the GUI for deleting files? . . . or even the concept of a mouse? All these became "standards" in their own right because they were well accepted by the consumer.
A standards body may save some knock down drag out fights over "standards" in the marketplace and may speed things up a bit, but the ultimate challenge is the marketplace . . . if people think that the interactive experience from a product sucks, then they're not going to buy it . . .
This has been a floating research topic in Cambridge for a long time.
The old Olivetti Research Labs (ORL) performed a lot of blue sky research activities, including production of omniORB (free CORBA ORB) and VNC (virtual network client) and so on. In fact, VNC was part of the focus on pervasive computing.
There was an umbilical cord between ORL and Cambridge Computer Laboratory with people like Andy Hopper and so on.
AT&T bought ORL in the late 1990's bringing it under its AT&T Labs arm: unfortunately it was too blue sky for AT&T is now days (e.g. AT&T Labs in Middletown NY is more commercially oriented - and as we've seen recently, they've lost a lot of fantastic talent by changing their focus) and closed in 2002.
Microsoft Research Institute in Cambridge has a lot of staff that fell out of these places, and the umbilical cords remain. It's an incestuous community (but a good one, it breeds a lot of new and interesting things).
The kinds of blue sky technologies that used to come out of these labs are now being produced by open source community.
If you own a machine, you are in turn owned by it,
and spend your time serving it.
(Marion Zimmer Bradley, 'The Forbidden Tower')
The machine does not isolate man from the great problems
of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.
(Antoine De Saint-Exupery)
regards,
john
While I do applaud these two institutions for their initiative, and wish them the best of luck, I feel that the poster has put a little bit of an unfair spin on the news, as if this is something that they just dreamed up entirelyon their own.
IBM, for example, has had a Pervasive Computing Lab in Austin, TX for several years that has produced several applications in a multitude of markets.
In fact, those of you that are fans of Opera may want to check out Multimodal Browsing on the Sharp Zaurus. Those of you with Windows may want to check out IBM's Multimodal Toolkit for creating these new X+V pages that we might be hearing more about in the future.
Enjoy the links!
~ Mike
Michael C. Hollinger
In the future, we will be able to optimize simple things like irrigation by allowing the stakeholders in the process to act as agents in a complex system. These agents will be able to optimize their system(s) by adapting their own (rule based) behavior to the behavior of other agents in the system. Ubiquitous communication is the first step in that direction. Robotic lawnmowers are the second.
In fact, I have been lamenting the wasted bandwidth I could be squeezing out of my sprinkler control wires during the daytime, when they are not used for irrigation. I could probably get 10Mbps to my sprinkler control valves if I installed the right hardware. My lawn mower, however, is another story; it is one of the old fashioned kind that can't even tell if the grass is too long in the first place. The only measurable bandwidth it has is about 22 inches.
Well, I've wasted enough of your time. I just wish I could have squeezed 'emergent behavior' into paragraph two.
Language students: Don't try to learn English here. This ain't it.
Right now the computers are in their infancy. The people who will ultimately use these pervasive computing environments, those that are just now in grade school, will be trained to use whatever interface the producers of this technology develop. It is nice to have academic research to back up the production and marketing guys, but which group has the most years of experience getting users to use electronics?
Take some examples. I never had any trouble learning or figuring out what the dials, yes the dial, on the TV did. I never had any trouble figuring out the top dial had to be set to a certain place in order to use the bottom dial. It was actually a complex logic puzzle. I figured it out. The same thing with the VCR. I now see three year old children able to navigate the complex buttons of the modern TV with no trouble at all. And they can't even read. The do by spatial position.
The same is true for vending machines, microwave ovens, whatever you like. There is no such thing as a truly intuitive interface, although some are more intuitive than others. There is really no reason to make the audio controllers on a computer the same as on a radio, except as a crutch to the older users. The young will choose the design that works for them. They will use it in ways that the researchers never thought of. And most will use it without any understanding of the technology, not even the basic notion that the color of the LED is created by the quantum mechanics.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
"With every new device, we have to learn new commands, languages or interfaces."
I agree. I was really annoyed that I had to learn a new interface to drive a car. Why can't it be just like walking? Then there was the TV set. The first time I tried to use one I lit a match thinking it would work like a fireplace, but nooo, they had to make it different with a huge lighter that supposedly emits invisible light rays. These days I can use a computer and I can't figure out why they don't make them all just like my desktop machine. Like my celphone, why doesn't it just have a normal keyboard and mouse, instead of those weird "Talk" and number keys?
This "problem" is not limited to computers.
You have to learn how to use your lawn mower, drive your car, play your guitar, use your dishwasher....
You cannot expect to get a new appliance without learning how to use it.