The main hardware ingredients needed for Ubiquitous Computing exist or are upon us, and yet software developments have not kept pace. Technology has turned mobile consumer devices and various personal appliances into reality, mobile telecommunication networks will soon offer more bandwidth, and devices are increasingly connected by short-range wireless networks. Even non-electronic everyday objects will be linked to the virtual space via various tagging techniques.
These developments form the technological basis for turning tomorrow's interconnected devices into components of ubiquitous distributed systems, but it is still largely unclear what requirements Ubiquitous Computing applications actually have in general, and how these can be met.
Ubiquitous Computing is today a largely application-driven discipline, led by the opportunities that newly arising devices and network technologies offer. Researchers have come up with various systems and scenarios tailored to specific applications, but comparably little effort has been spent on investigating common ground for the infrastructure and services underlying large populations of smart devices.
There is, however, a clear need to address the issues around infrastructure, common services, cooperation paradigms, and security for communicating and cooperating smart devices in general, and not just as they are tailored to specific applications. This workshop should contribute to a better understanding of these issues by bringing together people from academia and industry interested in infrastructural issues of Ubiquitous Computing. It aims to:
We hope that this workshop will contribute to the evolution of a promising new area of technology and will also help to bring academic and industrial research closer together.
Tim Kindberg, HP Labs
Friedemann. Mattern, ETH Zurich
Joachim Posegga, SAP Corporate Research
September 2000