Information Science Reference Handbook Of Research On Ubiquitous Computing Technology For Real Time Enterprises Jan 2008 ISBN 1599048329 pdf
Handbook of Research on
Ubiquitous ComputingTechnology for Real Time
Enterprises Max Mühlhäuser Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Iryna Gurevych Technische Universität Darmstadt, GermanyI N FORM AT I ON SCI EN CE REFEREN CE Hershey • New York Acquisitions Editor: Kristin Klinger Development Editor: Kristin Roth Editorial Assistants: Ross Miller, Deborah Yahnke Senior Managing Editor: Jennifer Neidig Managing Editor: Sara Reed Copy Editors: Alana Bubnis, Erin Meyer Typesetter: Michael Brehm Cover Design: Lisa Tosheff Printed at: Yurchak Printing Inc. Published in the United States of America by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global)
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any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the publisher. Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the trademark or registered trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Handbook of research on ubiquitous computing technology for real time enterprises / Max Muhlhauser and Iryna Gurevych, editors. p. cm.Summary: "This book combines the fundamental methods, algorithms, and concepts of pervasive computing with current innovations and
solutions to emerging challenges. It systemically covers such topics as network and application scalability, wireless network connectivity,
adaptability and "context-aware" computing, information technology security and liability, and human-computer interaction"--Provided by
publisher. Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN-13: 978-1-59904-832-1 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59904-835-2 (ebook) 1. Ubiquitous computing--Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Real-time data processing--Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Mühlhäuser, Max. II. Gurevych, Iryna. QA76.5915.H35 2007 004--dc22 2007032050 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Editorial Advisory Board Erwin Aitenbichler Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Hidir Aras University of Bremen, Germany Gerhard Austaller Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Alexander Behring Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Dirk Bradler Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Martin Faust University of Bremen, Germany Iryna Gurevych Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Andreas Hartl Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Melanie Hartmann Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Andreas Heinemann Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Marc Herrlich University of Bremen, Germany Jussi Kangasharju Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Tobias Klug Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Tobias Limberger Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Fernando Lyardet Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
Max Mühlhäuser Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Christof Müller Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Daniel Oberle SAP Research, Germany Andreas Petter Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Robert Porzel University of Bremen, Germany Sebastian Ries Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Dirk Schnelle Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Daniel Schreiber Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Julian Schröder-Bernhardi Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Jürgen Steimle Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Joachim Steinmetz Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Stefan-Georg Weber Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Markus Weimar Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Torsten Zesch Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
Table of Contents Detailed Table of Contents
................................................................................................................viii
Foreword
............................................................................................................................................ xvi
Preface ................................................................................................................................................ xix
Acknowledgment................................................................................................................................xli
Chapter I Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing / Max Mühlhäuser and Iryna Gurevych ................................... 1
Section I
Scalability: Two Issues of Global Scale
Chapter II Bionics: Learning from “The Born” / Tobias Limberger ...................................................................... 38 Chapter III Ubiquitous Services and Business Processes / Alistair Barros ............................................................. 57 Chapter IV Ontologies for Scalable Services-Based Ubiquitous Computing / Daniel Oberle, Christof Bornhövd, and Michael Altenhofen ........................................................................................88 Chapter V Service Discovery / Gerhard Austaller ............................................................................................... 107
Section II
Connectivity: Tapping into Humans and Items
Chapter VI Wireless and Mobile Communications / Jochen H. Schiller .............................................................. 133 Chapter VII Event-Based and Publish/Subscribe Communication / Erwin Aitenbichler ....................................... 152 Chapter VIII Peer-to-Peer Systems / Jussi Kangasharju ......................................................................................... 172 Chapter IX Opportunistic Networks / Andreas Heinemann .................................................................................. 190 Chapter X Smart Items in Real Time Enterprises / Zoltán Nochta ...................................................................... 211
Section III
Adaptability: What is (Not) Content?
Chapter XI Context Models and Context Awareness / Melanie Hartmann and Gerhard Austaller ...................... 235 Chapter XII A Focus on Location Context / Erwin Aitenbichler ............................................................................ 257 Chapter XIII Adapting to the User / Matthias Jöst .................................................................................................. 282Section IV
Liability: From IT Security to Liability
Chapter XIV Accounting and Charging: Guarantees and Contracts / Burkhard Stiller, David Hausheer, Jan Gerke, Peter Racz, Cristian Morariu, and Martin Waldburger ...................................................302
Chapter XV Security for Ubiquitous Computing / Tobias Straub and Andreas Heinemann .................................. 337 Chapter XVI Trust and Accountability / Sebastian Ries .......................................................................................... 363
Section V
Ease-of-Use: Natural and Multimodal Interaction
Chapter XVII Mobile Speech Recognition / Dirk Schnelle ....................................................................................... 397 Chapter XVIII Mouth and Ear Interaction / Dirk Schnelle ......................................................................................... 421 Chapter XIX Advanced Hands and Eyes Interaction / Michael Weber and Marc Hermann ................................... 445 Chapter XX Intelligent User Interfaces for Ubiquitous Computing / Rainer Malaka ............................................ 470 Chapter XXI Multimodal and Federated Interaction / Frankie James and Rama Gurram ...................................... 487 Chapter XXII Multimodal Software Engineering / Andreas Hartl ............................................................................ 508 Chapter XXIII Ambient Learning / Fernando Lyardet ............................................................................................... 530
Section VI
Pilots and Trends at SAP Research
Chapter XXIV CoBIs: Collaborative Business Items / Patrik Spieß and Jens Müller ............................................... 551 Chapter XXV PROMISE: Product Lifecycle Management and Information Tracking Using Smart Embedded Systems / Jürgen Anke, Bernhard Wolf, Gregor Hackenbroich,Hong-Hai Do, Mario Neugebauer, and Anja Klein ............................................................................ 559
Chapter XXVI Real-Time Location Tracking Mashup for Enterprise / Louenas Hamdi, Rama Gurram, ,and Samir Raiyani ............................................................................................................................... 567
Chapter XXVII Towards Adaptive Security for Ubiquitous Computing Systems: MOSQUITO and Serenity / Volkmar Lotz,
Luca Compagna, and Konrad Wrona ................................................................................................. 574
Chapter XXVIII Multimodal Warehouse Project / Samir Raiyani and Matthias Winkler ............................................585 Chapter XXIX Business Grids: Grid Computing for Business Applications / Wolfgang Gerteis ............................... 591 About the Contributors
................................................................................................................... 601
Index
................................................................................................................................................... 611
Detailed Table of Contents Foreword
............................................................................................................................................ xvi
Preface
................................................................................................................................................ xix
Acknowledgment ................................................................................................................................xli
Chapter I Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing / Max Mühlhäuser and Iryna Gurevych ................................... 1
The authors briefly describe the history of ubiquitous computing. Some terms and a few important
standards are subsequently introduced. In the last part, two kinds of reference architectures for ubiquitous
computing systems are discussed by way of example.
Section I
Scalability: Two Issues of Global Scale
Chapter II Bionics: Learning from “The Born” / Tobias Limberger ...................................................................... 38
The chapter focuses on distributed approaches to address the scalability challenges in ubiquitous
computing by means of bio-analog algorithms, which draw upon the realm of biology. The author
describes the algorithms based on the phenomena found on the organism level of biological systems
and examines the algorithms imitating procedures both on the cell and the molecular levels. Bio-analog
approaches are finally extrapolated to data management as a novel field.Chapter III Ubiquitous Services and Business Processes / Alistair Barros ............................................................. 57
The author describes service-oriented architecture (SOA) based on Web services interfaces and messaging,
and service composition through single-party process orchestration and multi-party choreography
languages. For the latter, concrete patterns are used to describe the capabilities of prospective standards.
Ways in which SOA needs to be extended to allow wider and more flexible service trading, typified in
current developments through service marketplaces, are then discussed. Such extensions converge
with directions in ubiquitous computing through so-called ubiquitous service networks and service
ecosystems.Chapter IV Ontologies for Scalable Services-Based Ubiquitous Computing / Daniel Oberle, Christof Bornhövd, and Michael Altenhofen ........................................................................................
88 Ontologies are proposed to address the scalability problems in ubiquitous computing, such as: (i)
identifying relevant services for deployment, (ii) verifying a composition by a logical rule framework,
and (iii) enabling the mapping of required services to the “best” available device. The authors focus
on the ontology languages emerging from the corresponding W3C Semantic Web Activity. The pros and
cons of ontologies are contrasted at a general level and the benefits and challenges in concrete smart
items middleware are demonstrated.Chapter V Service Discovery / Gerhard Austaller ............................................................................................... 107
The chapter briefly discusses the attributes that define SOA and the roles of the participants in a service
oriented environment. In essence, SOA permits clients in open systems to use services offered by a
service provider in the context of a workflow or complex task. Services are offered with a description at
well-known “places” (also called registries, repositories), where clients choose services according to
their needs. The chapter discusses several approaches to describing services and to searching for them.
Moreover, some well-known systems and current related research are discussed.
Section II
Connectivity: Tapping into Humans and items
Chapter VI Wireless and Mobile Communications / Jochen H. Schiller .............................................................. 133
The chapter focuses on different wireless and mobile communication systems that form the technological
basis for ubiquitous computing applications. Depending on many parameters, such as transmission
range, desired data rates, cost, mobility, power consumption, scalability in the number of users, and
so forth, different communication systems have been developed. They are surveyed and compared and
future directions are highlighted.Chapter VII Event-Based and Publish/Subscribe Communication / Erwin Aitenbichler ....................................... 152
The chapter introduces a taxonomy of communication models and emphasizes the event-based model and
publish-subscribe paradigm that will supersede the client-server paradigm in the ubiquitous computing
era. The relevant aspects of the publish-subscribe paradigm are introduced along with known approaches.
The inner working of distributed event-based systems is thoroughly treated.Chapter VIII Peer-to-Peer Systems / Jussi Kangasharju ......................................................................................... 172
Wide-spread and novel application domains for peer-to-peer technology are described; challenges for
appropriate support of the latter are pointed out. Unstructured peer-to-peer networks and their variants
are contrasted with structured ones. The suitability and open issues in the context of ubiquitous computing
are highlighted.Chapter IX Opportunistic Networks / Andreas Heinemann .................................................................................. 190
Opportunistic networks support an increasingly interesting class of ubiquitous computing applications,
which deliberately limit connectivity to physical proximity of users. This application class and its variants
are described and contrasted with wireless ad hoc networks and mobile peer-to-peer systems. Important
human factors are treated, in particular privacy conservation and incentive schemes. Pertinent approaches
are introduced by way of examples.Chapter X Smart Items in Real Time Enterprises / Zoltán Nochta ...................................................................... 211
This chapter deals with the idea of how smart items, that is, electronically labeled and augmented physical
entities, can contribute to the overall vision of the real time enterprise by utilizing different ubiquitous
computing technologies. The main components of the smart items middleware are described.
Section III
Adaptability: What is (Not) Content?
Chapter XI Context Models and Context Awareness / Melanie Hartmann and Gerhard Austaller ...................... 235
This chapter gives an overview of how knowledge of the current context, that is, information characterizing
the situation, can be represented and how this knowledge can be used for enhancing applications. The
definitions of “context” and “context-aware applications” are given. The authors present guidelines
on how to build a context-aware application and some challenges in using context information are
discussed.Chapter XII A Focus on Location Context / Erwin Aitenbichler ............................................................................ 257 With respect to the important ubiquitous computing issue “context awareness,” location is presently
considered the most important and best supported context. Accordingly, the chapter starts with an overview
of relevant location determination technologies. A thorough treatment of the physical and mathematical
foundations of location determination follows. Both indoor and outdoor position are treated in detail.
The chapter also provides insight into a broad range of available positioning systems.Chapter XIII Adapting to the User / Matthias Jöst .................................................................................................. 282
Adaptation is needed to handle the increasing complexity in today’s computing environments. The chapter
focuses on the aspect of adaptation that puts the user into focus. It thus provides an important complement
to the adaptation via context-awareness that is emphasized in the ubiquitous computing community and
in the two preceding chapters. It introduces different adaptation types possible in ubiquitous computing,
like interaction, content, and presentation. Basic requirements for appropriately modelling the users
and approaches to personalize applications are presented.
Section IV
Liability: From IT Security to Liability
Chapter XIV Accounting and Charging: Guarantees and Contracts / Burkhard Stiller, David Hausheer,
Jan Gerke, Peter Racz, Cristian Morariu, and Martin Waldburger ................................................... 302
For IP-based communications, charging is used as a comprehensive term for metering or monitoring,
accounting, pricing, charge calculation, and billing. These five actions are detailed in the chapter to
provide a clear view on their interdependencies as well as their relations to distributed computing. The
legal and contractual relationships between customers and providers as well as technological choices of
protocols, mechanisms, and parameters define the area of interest here. With their background purpose
of assuring and verifying exactly the flow of service provision and service remuneration intended,
the concepts described represent an important ingredient of future liability concepts for ubiquitous
computingChapter XV Security for Ubiquitous Computing / Tobias Straub and Andreas Heinemann .................................. 337
The chapter motivates the need for a dedicated treatment of security in the context of ubiquitous
computing. It systematically discusses the particular security challenges and predominant security risks
in the ubiquitous computing context. The major part of the chapter is dedicated to the description of
sample solutions in order to illustrate the wealth of protection mechanisms required – and increasingly
available. An overview of cryptographic tools is given.Chapter XVI Trust and Accountability / Sebastian Ries .......................................................................................... 363
The chapter focuses on the concepts of trust and accountability. The author first introduces the semantics
of both concepts and then explains why trust is relevant for ubiquitous computing and what the main
issues for dealing with trust in computer science are. Then, the chapter discusses how accountability
can be achieved in distributed systems using reputation and micropayment mechanisms.
Section V
Ease-of-Use: Natural and Multimodal Interaction
Chapter XVII Mobile Speech Recognition / Dirk Schnelle ....................................................................................... 397
This chapter is considered as a prerequisite for deeper understanding of the subsequent chapter. It gives
an overview of the main architectures to enable speech recognition on embedded devices, including
their characteristic features and properties. A description of the main challenges for the use of speech
recognition on embedded devices—and thus, in the ubiquitous computing context—is given. The author
provides a solid base for the selection of the most appropriate architecture for the business case of real
time enterprises.Chapter XVIII Mouth and Ear Interaction / Dirk Schnelle ......................................................................................... 421
Ubiquitous computing involves users on the move, suggesting hands-and-eyes-free operation, for which
speech is an obvious choice. The chapter gives an overview of the challenges that have to be mastered
in ubiquitous computing while working with audio, which is not easy to handle as a medium. To make
things worse, mouth and ear interaction is often performed without focusing attention on the device.
The author explains why audio-based interfaces are challenging to handle and shows how to master the
challenges and to improve the quality of applications involving mouth and ear interaction.Chapter XIX Advanced Hands and Eyes Interaction / Michael Weber and Marc Hermann ................................... 445
While mouth-and-ears interaction is becoming more important for ubiquitous computing, hands-and-eyes
interaction, especially in novel forms, remains essential. The chapter gives an overview of the broad
range of pertinent interaction techniques. The chapter gives a short introduction to the fundamentals
of human-computer interaction and the traditional user interfaces. It then surveys multi-scale output
devices, gives a general idea of hands and eyes input, specializes them by merging the virtual and real
world, and introduces attention and affection for enhancing the interaction with computers and especially
with disappearing computers.Chapter XX Intelligent User Interfaces for Ubiquitous Computing/ Rainer Malaka ............................................. 470
The chapter introduces a set of general approaches for designing user interfaces with a special focus
on the specific needs for ubiquitous computing scenarios. The author learns from good interface design
for other—classical—devices and applies many of those user interface design principles to ubiquitous
computing as well. A central aspect is the design process that helps to find the right sequence of steps
in building a good user interface.Chapter XXI Multimodal and Federated Interaction / Frankie James and Rama Gurram ...................................... 487
The authors first introduce some of the various modalities available for human-computer interaction.
Then, they discuss how multimodality can be used both in desktop and mobile computing environments.
The goal of the chapter is to familiarize scholars and researchers with the range of topics covered under
the heading “multimodality” and suggest new areas of research around the combination of modalities,
as well as the combination of mobile and stationary computing devices to improve usability.Chapter XXII Multimodal Software Engineering / Andreas Hartl ............................................................................ 508
Ubiquitous computing makes it necessary to supplant the desktop metaphor of graphical user interfaces
by other kinds of user interfaces for a multitude of devices and interaction modalities. The chapter
presents three different software engineering approaches that address this challenge: extensions to
Web-based approaches, abstract user interface definitions that add a level of abstraction to the user
interface definition, and model-based approaches that extend model-based application development to
integrate user interface issues as well.Chapter XXIII Ambient Learning / Fernando Lyardet ............................................................................................... 530
Ambient learning is a new area in ubiquitous computing, dealing with the different learning processes
that occur between people and smart technology environments. The chapter provides a definition of what
ambient learning is and discusses its relevance to ubiquitous computing. It presents the learning concepts
behind ambient learning and a detailed example of training a user. The technological building blocks
behind the smart products supporting their ability to learn from each other and assemble or “compose”
their functionality are examined in detail.
Section V
Pilots and Trends at SAP Research
Chapter XXIV CoBIs: Collaborative Business Items / Patrik Spieß and Jens Müller ............................................... 551
The chapter describes an example of ubiquitous computing technology in a corporate environment. The
goal of the pilot was reduction of the risk in handling hazardous substances by detecting potentially
dangerous storage situations and raising alarms if certain rules are violated. The lesson learnt: if
employed in a shop floor, warehouse, or retail environment, UC technology can improve real-world
business processes, making them safer and more efficient.Chapter XXV PROMISE: Product Lifecycle Management and Information Tracking Using Smart Embedded Systems / Jürgen Anke, Bernhard Wolf, Gregor Hackenbroich, Hong-Hai Do, Mario Neugebauer, and Anja Klein ............................................................................
559
The goals and application scenarios of the PROMISE project are presented. The PROMISE project aims to
close the information loop in product lifecycle management by employing product embedded information
devices (PEIDs) in products. Special attention is given to the middleware design and implementation
well as the role of universal plug and play (UPnP) as device-level protocol.Chapter XXVI Real-Time Location Tracking Mashup for Enterprise / Louenas Hamdi, Rama Gurram, and Samir Raiyani ...............................................................................................................................
567
The chapter describes a new automatic vehicle location (AVL) system designed to take advantage of
technologies that are currently gaining popularity in the enterprise, namely, online maps, real time GPS
location tracking, and service-oriented architectures. The system uses a service-oriented architecture and
Ajax-style user interface technology. The authors show that for Ajax technology to be widely adopted in
the applications involving real time data updates, a server-side push mechanism is needed.Chapter XXVII Towards Adaptive Security for Ubiquitous Computing Systems: MOSQUITO and Serenity / Volkmar Lotz, Luca Compagna, and Konrad Wrona ........................................................................................
574
The authors introduce two example projects that contribute to meeting the challenges in adaptive security.
The first project focuses on an architecture that allows for adaptive security in mobile environments based
on security services whose adaptation is guided by context information derived from sensor networks.
The second project addresses engineering aspects of secure ubiquitous computing systems through
making security solutions accessible and deployable on demand and following emerging application-
level requirements.Chapter XXVIII Multimodal Warehouse Project / Samir Raiyani and Matthias Winkler...............................................585
The Multimodal Warehouse Project is presented, which aims at applying multimodal interaction to a
warehouse picking process. The authors provide an overview of the warehouse picking procedure as well
as the overall architecture of the multimodal picking application and technologies applied to design the
application. Then, they describe the execution of user tests of the picking application at a warehouse
and present the results of these tests.Chapter XXIX Business Grids: Grid Computing for Business Applications / Wolfgang Gerteis ............................... 591
The second short contribution about emerging trends proposes business grids as a means to provide
enterprise computing infrastructures “as a utility” so that software and hardware resources (such as
applications, components, systems, and servers) can be easily operated under frequently changing
business conditions (such as changing strategies, models, processes, workload, etc.). The chapter details
the vision of business grids from various solution perspectives, describes the state-of-the-art in grid
computing and compares business grids and e-science grids.About the Contributors
................................................................................................................... 601
Index
................................................................................................................................................... 611 xvi Foreword WHAT’S IN A NAME IF IT IS ALL IN THE GAME?
When reading through the manuscript of this novel volume I was struck by the heroic attempt of the editors to position their book as a holistic approach to the subject of ubiquitous computing. I found their strong stand especially striking in this respect with respect to the use of nomenclature in the domain of ubiquitous computing. The editors acknowledge that there are many different notions presented in the literature addressing similar concepts as that of ubiquitous computing, but they argue that all these notions should be considered as a single approach to the topic of the disappearing computer. More specifically, the editors refuse to identify and describe the borderlines between different notions such as ubiquitous computing, pervasive computing, and ambient intelligence, following their strong conviction that it makes not much sense to quarrel about thin borderlines between major overlapping fields as their exploration is still open to a large extent.
As a convert to the concept of ambient intelligence for almost ten years now I must admit that I con- tinuously have felt the need in the past to explain these differences in an attempt to mark the borderlines. Evidently, most of these notions, which were developed during the late nineties of the past century, are rooted in the early ideas expressed by the late Mark Weiser, who was dreaming of a world that would be flooded with embedded devices, note pads, and electronic dust, which would soon become feasible as a result of the remarkable advances in the manufacturing of semiconductor devices and micro-systems. However, the developments that have been achieved over the past ten years have shown that there can be no doubt about the question whether or not Mark’s dream will come true; it surely will. The remain- ing question however is related to the issue of which form it will take and how it can be configured in such a way that society and its participants maximally benefit from it. On the other hand, some of the innovation directions have changed in the meantime, which has opened new venues for research. Great inventions, such as ambient atmospheres through distributed solid-state lighting devices, virtual envi- ronments applying 3D interactive words such as Second Life, and ultimately “The Internet of Things” have made the discussion about the differences between the various notions artificial and esoteric. More interesting therefore is the question how far the advances in this domain have stretched the boundaries of what is currently feasible. And again the editors deserve a compliment as they have addressed this question in a most original way. Their S.C.A.L.E. classification provides a simple and most practical reference model for the description of the relevant topics in the field of ubiquitous computing. Further- more, they have succeeded in combining in the present book a most remarkable collection of research results representative of the advances in this domain. The many high-quality contributions reflect the scholarship and expertise of their authors. The book is definitely a mandatory reading for anyone who is professionally active in the field of ubiquitous computing, as it can be seen as a landmark approach to the description of the advances in this domain. xviii Foreword
As computing has become more and more an integral part of our daily business and personal lives, the trend of ubiquitous computing will transform the way in which businesses will work and collaborate. The well-known fact of a huge community of users on the Internet (1,100 million users as of March 2007) will be complemented by at least one order of magnitude higher (10,000 millions of artificial users) instantiated by machines, sensors and things connected to the Internet. More precise data will be generated and accumulated that enable completely new business scenarios for the future. The fact of being connected to that universe of human users and artificial users will speed up decisions in business (real-time enterprise) and enable those who can master the infrastructure and the application services on top of the infrastructure to be more competitive than others. Application fields from logistics to e-health, from supply-chain management and manufacturing to public security will benefit from the fact that the “Internet of Things” and the “Internet of People” converge using an “Internet of Services” architecture.
I would like to congratulate Professor Mühlhäuser and Dr. Gurevych for their comprehensive over- view of ubiquitous computing scenarios, real world examples and architectural blueprints that combine the various elements into insights into the vision of how the virtual world will interact with the physical world. I would also like to thank my colleagues from SAP Research and the SAP senior executives who have been supporting the research program of “smart items,” which has produced many excellent results over the last eight years that are also reflected in this book.
Joachim Schaper
Joachim Schaper received his Diploma (1988) and PhD (1995) from the Technical University of Karl-
sruhe. Since 1989, he worked for Digital Equipment Corp. in their European Research Center, CEC
Karlsruhe. He became the manager of that center, which in turn became part of SAP AG Corporate
Research (1999). In 2001, Schaper took over additional responsibilities as a founding manager of the
Corporate Research Groups at SAP Labs France and SAP Africa. From 2003 to 2005, he managed the
SAP Research Center in Palo Alto and a research group in Montreal. A vice president of EMEA, Schaper
is responsible for all research activities of SAP in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, reporting to the
head of corporate research and to the executive board. His research interests comply with the topics
investigated in the SAP research groups on e-learning, smart items, mobile computing, and technology for application integration and advanced customer interfaces. xix Preface ABSTRACT
The preface provides an introduction to and a definition of ubiquitous computing as a computer science
field and relates it to the concept of real time enterprises. We describe the main challenges in ubiquitous
computing and introduce the S.C.A.L.E. classification employed to organize the contents of the book.
Finally, recommendations about using the book as a reference and teaching resource are given.OUTLINE AND SUBJECT OF THIS BOOK
On the next couple of pages, we first want to provide an introduction to and a definition of ubiquitous computing (UC)—both as a scientific domain and as a technology area—and relate it to the concept of real time enterprises. We first define the scope of UC as a domain—in particular as covered in the present book. The question is raised whether UC is a research field in its own right; we also explain the required trade-off between breadth and depth of coverage concerning the contents of this book. The S.C.A.L.E. classification is introduced as probably the first attempt to provide a canonical structure and organization of the area. The present preface thus gives the reader a better idea about why this book is structured in a particular way and why it covers the range of topics selected by the editors. A “reader’s digest” is provided, both as an overview of the chapters provided in this book and as a guide for readers with different backgrounds and interests.
So far, no single book exists which sufficiently covers ubiquitous computing in a holistic way. Many UC books restrict themselves to combinations of middleware, networking, and security. However, UC has lately extended beyond this focus and even beyond purely technical issues. In particular, understanding current developments in the field requires knowledge about pertinent algorithms and concepts in artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. All-in-one reference books covering the foundations of ubiquitous computing and the areas mentioned above are missing; therefore, researchers, practitioners, and academics typically use collections of papers from the respective conferences and individual chap- ters from the books emphasizing a single area. This approach does not provide the target audience with a coherent view of the field. Also, the presentation of materials often presumes too much knowledge about the related topics.