Ubiquitous History

1. Welcome
2. 1. Preface
3. 2. Birth and Infancy
4. 3. Video Analysis Researcher
5. 4. MediaTeam and Convergence
6. 5. Ubiquitous History
7. 6. Waterfall Model of Innovation
8. 7. Living Lab and Societal Impact
9. 8. Humanism and Technology
10. Credits

Ubiquitous computing can best be described as the omnipresence of computers: they are integrated into all kinds of everyday objects, such as household appliances and clothing, instead of a single, relatively large device like they are today. These multiple computers are all connected to a network and perform tasks according to the user’s actions, with or without the user being aware of them. Mark Weiser, the "father" of ubiquitous computing, phrased it this way: "The technology required for ubiquitous computing comes in three parts: cheap, low-power computers that include equally convenient displays, a network that ties them all together, and software systems implementing ubiquitous applications". MediaTeam has contributed particularly to the latter two parts: the network and the software systems.

In terms of software systems, MediaTeam’s contribution has included creating middleware – the software layer between the operating system and its applications – for ubiquitous devices, or, as we call it, “middleware for smart spaces”. Much of this work took place in the CAPNET (Context-Aware Pervasive NETworking) research program. The program comprised of four related projects: Spearhead, Technology Enablers, Challenger and Experiments. Two projects were always in progress simultaneously. The first project pair, CAPNET Spearhead and CAPNET Technology Enablers, was impressive on a national scale – together, the pair formed one of the four national spearhead projects in the NETS (Networks of the Future) program of the National Technology Agency, one of the largest programs in the Agency’s history. “CAPNET was a huge, multidisciplinary program that brought together skilled people from several different faculties, universities and countries. There were more than a dozen researchers from MediaTeam alone.” says Marika Leskelä, the CAPNET program manager.

“The research goals were quite broad and wide-ranging.” adds Jari Forstadius, one of the program’s project managers. “We studied things like context-based rules – if you are in a meeting room outside working hours, you probably do not need access to the projector, but this changes if you’re in a meeting – and software that would automatically pick services relevant to your situation from a long list.” Later, the various research themes of the first project pair were focused even further in the second pair, which, though somewhat smaller, created prototypes and demos that contributed a lot to the research of ubiquitous technology. “We created actual prototype environments which allowed the system to track a person with different kinds of context information and list available services in a specific location – offer a connection to a room’s printer, for example.” Forstadius explains. The impact of the CAPNET program on MediaTeam’s future was considerable, as well: “The CAPNET program gave our postgraduates a glimpse of a ubiquitous world and provided MediaTeam with access to better scientific forums, paving the way for more advanced research on the subject.” Leskelä says. The CAPNET program was also a fine example of international cooperation – it included research visits to the IBM laboratory in Zürich, the Nokia Research Center in Cambridge (USA), the University of Maryland (USA) and the Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, as well as other cooperation with these two universities.

The research of ubiquitous technology at MediaTeam has, to date, yielded dozens of scientific papers and Master’s Theses on related subjects – service and resource discovery, resource management, middleware architecture, multimedia adaptation and various others. The large amount of quality research, coupled with the fact that many businesses are interested in it, promises an interesting future for this research field.

MediaTeam's research on ubiquitous computing continues in the UBI program which started in fall 2007.

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