Situated Computing vs. Ubiquitous Computing:The Importance of Place

Joe McCarthy

Principal Instigator, Strands Labs Seattle

Co-Chair, UbiComp 2008 Program CommitteeChair, UbiComp Steering Committee

Outline

• A Brief, Biased Review of Ubiquitous Computing

• Situated Computing

• Proactive Displays

• Future Prospects

• Question and Answers

Strands: social recommendation & discovery

http://blog.strands.com

Strands develops technologies to better understand people's taste and help them discover things they like and didn't know about.

Principal Instigator: Definition

\ˈprin(t)-s(ə-)pəladjective

most important, consequential, or influential

\ˈin(t)-stə-ˌgā-tər\ Noun

one who goads or urges forward : provocateur

Alternate: Director, Strands Lab Seattle

Major Trends in Computing

The Three Waves of Computing, Mark Weiser, 1990

Major Trends in Computing Places

Out of the closet, …

Major Trends in Computing Places

Out of the closet, beyond the desktop, …

Major Trends in Computing Places

Out of the closet, beyond the desktop, and into the office

(from kraka.com)

Major Trends in Computing Places

Out of the closet, beyond the desktop, and into the kitchen

Beyond Microwave Oven (Westinghouse)

NCR Microwave Bank

Electrolux ScreenFridge

Ubiquitous Computing and Toasters

Simon Hackett & John RomkeyInternet Toaster

InterOp 1990 & 1991

Robin SouthgateWeather ToasterBrunel Univ. (UK)

June 2001

Joe KlinglerToAsTOr

December 2002

Major Trends in Computing Places

Out of the closet, beyond the desktop, and into fields & streets

Vineyard in Oregon

Great Duck Island, Maine

Phone booths in SeattleStore fronts in New York

Major Trends in Computing Places

Out of the closet, beyond the desktop, and into … people?

MexicoAttorney General

SpainBeach Club

Cincinnati, OH

Tommy ThompsonGov WI, Sec HHS,

Applied Digital

John Halamka, M.D.,

CIO Harvard Medical School

?

Ubiquitous Computing: anything, anywhere, anyone

Chris Oakley, The Catalogue

http://www.chrisoakley.com/the_catalogue.html http://www.spychips.com

Everywhere vs. Certain Places ...

… Ubiquitous Computing vs. Situated Computing

Ubiquitous vs. Situated Displays

ElevatorsTaxis(London)

Buses (Milwaukee, WI)

EscalatorsTimes Square(New York)

Shibuya District(Tokyo)

Proactive Displays: Definition

\(ˌ)prō-ˈak-tiv\ adjective

acting in anticipation of future problems, needs, or changes

\di-ˈsplā\ noun

a setting or presentation of something in open view

Large visual or aural displays that can sense & respond in contextually appropriate ways

to the people and/or activities going on in a place

Early examples of proactive displays

Dangling String (PARC)

Bus Mobile (UC Berkeley)

Proactive displays in the large

Sunset @ 200MHz (PARC)

Proactive displays on the road

Alaris E-boards(www.alaris.net)

Proactive displays on the wall

Humanlocator.org

Proactive Displays in a store

iCapture™ iGaze™

tru-media.com

Proactive displays in a store, circa 2054

+

OnlineProfiles

Physical Tokens

+

LargeDisplays

BetterReal-worldInteractions

Bridging the gaps between peopleby bridging the gaps between the online and offline worlds

=

Large visual or aural displays that can sense & respond to the people and/or activities going on in a place

Proactive Displays

1st Generation Proactive Displays

MUSICFX

MusicFX: An Arbiter of Group Preferences for Computer-Supported Cooperative WorkoutsJoseph F. McCarthy and Theodore Anagnost1998 ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW ‘98)

A Multi-Agent System for Meting Out Influence in an Intelligent EnvironmentM. V. Nagendra Prasad and Joseph F. McCarthyEleventh Innovative Applications in Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI ‘99)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLgXLl4uGYk

a group recommender system for selecting music in a fitness center

2nd Generation Proactive Displays

Visual Awareness Location Tools (ACTIVEMAP & EVENTMANAGER)

ActiveMap: A Visualization Tool for Location Awareness to Support Informal InteractionsJoseph F. McCarthy and Eric S. MeidelFirst International Symposium on Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing (HUC '99)

EventManager: Support for the Peripheral Awareness of EventsJoseph F. McCarthy and Theodore D. Anagnost.Second International Symposium on Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing (HUC 2000)

promoting greater awareness of the location and activities of coworkers

3rd Generation Proactive Displays

UNICAST, OUTCAST, GROUPCAST: Ubiquitous Peripheral Displays

UniCast, OutCast & GroupCast: Three Steps Toward Ubiquitous Peripheral DisplaysJoseph F. McCarthy, Tony J. Costa and Edy S. LiongosariThird International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2001)

Promoting Awareness of Work Activities through Peripheral DisplaysElaine M. Huang, Joe Tullio, Tony J. Costa and Joseph F. McCarthy2002 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems (CHI 2002)

promoting awareness and interactions in the office

4th Generation Proactive Displays

Augmenting the Social Space of an Academic ConferenceJoseph F. McCarthy, David W. McDonald, Suzanne Soroczak, David H. Nguyen and Al M. RashidACM 2004 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2004)

Proactive Displays: Supporting Awareness in Fluid Social EnvironmentsDavid W. McDonald, Joseph F. McCarthy, Suzanne Soroczak, David H. Nguyen and Al M. RashidACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interactions (TOCHI), Vol. 14, No. 4, January 2008

promoting awareness and interactions at a conferenceAUTOSPEAKERID, TICKET2TALK, NEIGHBORHOOD WINDOW

4th Generation Proactive Displays (v 2)

promoting awareness and interactions at a variety of eventsTICKET2TALK (@ Interrelativity)

5th Generation Proactive Displays

The Context, Content & Community Collage: Sharing Personal Digital Media in the Physical WorkplaceJoseph F. McCarthy, Ben Congleton, F. Maxwell HarperTo appear: ACM 2008 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2008)

promoting awareness and interactions in the officeTHE CONTEXT, CONTENT & COMMUNITY COLLAGE

A User-Generated Video on Proactive Displays

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5rU9cAiYsY

Creating C3 Collage Accounts

Interactions with displays

Locations (mock-up)

Positive / Negative Impact (Personal / Professional)

The Latest Generation of Proactive Displays

• Shortcomings of previous efforts• Single sensors

(Infrared, RFID, Bluetooth)

• Special-purpose profiles

• Special-purpose installations

• Goals of present / future efforts• Multiple sensors

(Cards, WiFi, SMS)

• Multi-purpose profiles

• Multi-purpose installations

CoffeeStrands™: A Proactive Displays in a Café

Proactive displays that enable café staff and customersto share digital representations of their interests and activities

in the shared physical context of the coffeehouse,using loyalty cards, Bluetooth phones, SMS messages and/or laptops

Why Cafés? Connection, Community & Coffeehouses

The dark side of cafés, technology and community

Cyber-nomads are “hollowing out” cafés that offer WiFi, rendering them“physcially inhabited but psychologically evacuated” leaving people“more isolated than they would be if the café were merely empty.”

-- James E. Katz, Professor of Communications, Rutgers University

Our goals

• Take what coffeehouses already have

• Inviting spaces for people (including customers) to hang out

• Large displays, posters, cork bulletin boards

• Internet access

• Coffee, music, art, people, …

• Promotional signage & brochures

• Products / services to sell

• Add what many people really want

• Connect more effectively with others, creating a stronger sense of community

• Facilitate awareness, interactions and relationships

• Bring the richness of online social networking into a physical place

A Place-Based Social Networking Service

How?

• Sensing

• Cards

• Phones (BT, SMS)

• WiFi laptops

• Other …

• Responding: user-generated content

• Tap into existing social media streams (Flickr, Twitter, …)

• Open physical, real-time channel (partyStrands, Wiffiti, …

Which Café?: Trabant Coffee & Chai Lounge

Location matters

CoffeeStrands: System Architecture

• Display (Community Collage, or CoCo™)• 3D dynamic collage of content

• Presence Detector(s)• Loyalty card reader, Bluetooth, SMS, WiFi

• Web interface• User profile maintenance & viewing

• Voting, commenting, flagging, messaging

• Admin: café content, moderation

• Database• User profiles (contact info, media)

• History of content shown on display

• Metadata (votes, etc.)

• Web server• Connects / controls all of the above

• Content selection algorithm

CoffeeStrands: Welcome

CoffeeStrands: Stream (history)

CoffeeStrands: People

CoffeeStrands: My Profile

CoffeeStrands: My Profile (edit)

CoffeeStrands: My Stuff

CoCo in situ

CoffeeStrands: CoCo™ (Community Collage) display

CoffeeStrands, CoCo display: 3D semi-random pan

CoffeeStrands, CoCo display: greeting

CoffeeStrands, CoCo display: direct message

CoCo: Current Stats

Feature Count (10-Sep-2008)

Users 86

Items 1175

Comments 581

Votes 237

Check-ins 222

CoCo: Future Work

• Presence Detection: SMS check-in

• Other devices: Chumby, iPhone, CoffeeCam

• Multiple locations

• Incentives / Promotions

• Funtivities

• New visualization(s)

• Media linking

• Augmented profiles

• Favoriting / following

• Facebook integration

• Integration with Strands.com

• Ongoing challenge: how much of online social networking services to re-create

Conclusion

• Ubiquitous Computing holds great promise

• Situated Computing – ubiquitous computing in specific places - can increase benefits while decreasing risks

• Proactive Displays – a class of situated computing applications – can sense & respond to people in contextually appropriate ways, providing place-based social networking services in a variety of places:

• Workplaces

• Conferences

• Cafés

• The greatest promise for the future of ubiquitous computing is to open up new portals between the online and offline worlds, in ways that provide benefits for all stakeholders.

Acknowledgements / Contact info

• For more information:

• http://labs.strands.com/seattle

• http://gumption.typepad.com/blog/strands

• http://interrelativity.com/joe

• mccarthy@strands.com

Yogi Patel

InnovationEngineer

Sameer Ahuja

Former Intern(Virginia Tech)

Shelly Farnham

Researcher

Richie Hazlewood

Intern (Indiana Univ.)

Josh Lind

Designer/Developer

Dan Norman

Designer

Thanks! Questions?