Mobile computing (also called pervasive or ubiquitous computing) is an interdisciplinary research area that focuses on handheld, wearable, mobile, embedded and sensor-based computing. Continued progress in all areas of basic technologies, including semiconductor, storage, communication, and display, fuels rapid growth of this nontraditional means of information access. New paradigms, such as locality-aware devices, always-on mobile connectivity, and environment-aware products, are driving the intermixing of personal and business activities and ever tighter information technology integration into human lives.

Enabling Technologies

Today, people use pervasive devices primarily to access Web and PIM (Personal Information Management) data. In the future, people will want richer functionality from their pervasive devices, including abilities to publish/subscribe events and messages, and to participate in workflow processes. In the iQueue project, we are building an integrated set of services that enables such functions. In addition to providing protocol translation, asynchrony, caching, and client state management, iQueue integrates awareness services to exploit user context, notification services to reach a user in a multitude of ways, and intelligent agent services to allow for programmable event and content filtering.
iBeam is an electronic customer support solution, currently being implemented for PCs but it is applicable to pervasive and mobile systems. iBeam delivers increased levels of service and support that can be realized as a result of a connected Web world. iBeam reduces inefficiencies of traditional technical support by enabling support providers to care for customers automatically, using the Web. The electronic customer support infrastructure creates and maintains an electronic life cycle relationship with each customer.
Devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), phones, and PCs vary widely in their capabilities. Consider their user interfaces, their network capabilities, and the software functions and protocols supported by the devices. As a result of this heterogeneity, today's application developers need to write each application multiple times, once per device profile. We are building a programming environment for writing an application once and then automatically adapting the application to capabilities on individual devices.

Pervasive Computing Platforms

We are prototyping a smart watch platform called Watchpad. It provides personal information access and an alert notification device with both short-range and long-range wireless connectivity and an ultrahigh resolution display. Several research challenges arise in the area of user interface design, power management, display, packaging, model for coexistence with other pervasive devices, and software design for embedded systems. The focus is on software (using the Linux operating system) and hardware components that can later be utilized in other form factors as well.

The Automotive Solutions project is exploring technologies that can be used to deliver new and useful functions to occupants of automotive vehicles. This work draws heavily from wireless and embedded technologies, telematics, speech I/O technology, and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) technologies to develop safe and easy-to-use solutions that deliver information and services when and where they are needed. The safety and usability issues demand innovative architectures and creative HCI techniques for accessing, presenting, and managing information in this environment.
In the BlueSpace project, we are developing and prototyping futuristic office environments characterized by the integration of the physical workspace with the digital world. This will be accomplished through the exploitation of emerging sensor and input devices, advanced communication and display technologies, and sophisticated HCI techniques. The goal is the development of new work environments and office paradigms that lead to improved comfort, better personalization, and higher productivity.

Applications

The Virtual Assistant is a software application that presents a conversational interface to services that might commonly be associated with a human administrative assistant. It provides efficient access to incoming messages (e-mail, voice-mail, news, fax, phone, etc.) by filtering, prioritizing and summarizing them according to individual user needs and preferences. It assists the user in completing complex tasks, including phone calling, calendar scheduling, and more. The virtual assistant can understand the context of such queries as "send a note to Joe" and "call Jane's manager."

Our Tokyo Research Lab has developed transcoding technologies to simplify migration on PC-based applications to common forms of pervasive devices. On the basis of this technology, IBM Japan developed the first mobile Web banking application for Sakura Bank, which allows users to check their accounts and transfer money on the Web. The service was started in February 1999, at the same time that NTT DoCoMo started its Internet access service for cell phone users.

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