UbiDisco at AmI-10 Conference

Editor's Notes

3. Smart environments often contain embedded resources that can be used to enhance the experience of the users. Applications need to continuously reconfigure themselves based on the current context of the users as the users move around. Automation of resource associations in smart environments requires a first initial step: the discovery and integration of the resources into the our personal computing systems. There are two main approaches: indirect network-based (or registry-based) discovery and direct tag-based discovery. Let’s see some examples. --
4. Within network-based discovery we include both conventional resource discovery architectures often used to connect computers, like installing a driver or browsing a printer server, (hence developed with a network topology in mind) and the new applications/services stores born mobile platforms like iPhone/Android. The user is here usually engaged in browsing a long list of discovered services or apps and in some cases has to remember network addresses, passwords or service names, some systems try to help the choice guessing what the user need sorting the list of results by the closest or most used services. The user interaction paradigm adopted by these systems, even if we assist in great improvements on mobile platforms, can still be trivial for some users, like elderly or diseased people, that are not used to interact with a computer or a modern smartphone. ---- Traditionally we’re used to install a new device using a cd-driver or for instance browsing a printer server for a printer. These are registry-based architectures, traditionally used to connect computers and developed with a network topology in mind. Ubiquitous systems need a higher degree of user centeredness. It is the intention of the user in focus and not the network topology. We could have registry-based discovery architectures. These have traditionally been used to connect computers, and implemented with network topology in mind. These Conventional RD consist, for instance, browsing a print server or a shared directory. Ubiquitous systems require a higher degree of user-centeredness. It is the intention of the user that is in focus when discovering new resources, and not the network topology.
5. As opposite to network-based discovery, a recent line of research has focused on supporting integration of resources using embedded tags, like RFID or QRCodes. This approach requires a user-initiated action like touching or scanning a tag with a mobile device. The tag is used to obtain an augmented representation of the resource, we’ve been seeing some applications for advertisement... In order to discover a service the user need to stand in front of a service advertisement and need to explore his physical proximity in order to find the desired service. Beside this mechanism is quite immediate in term of user interaction, the user need to have a software to decode the tag and must be in line of sight with the service, so he might not be aware of other services in the environment. -- This mechanism is quite immediate but still require to download a client for each tag-standard and sometimes to send data to a server to get the tag decoded. Moreover just few smartphones are equipped with a RFID reader. Direct tag-based discovery utilizes the properties of the physical space such as proximity and visibility, and eliminates a number of risks for "misfiring" i.e. finding the wrong resources
6. We believe that both of these two approaches are important. But they are often developed in parallel with little integration, leading to a fragmentation of the user experience in service discovery processes. To reach the goal of start using a newly encountered service, the user has to have available on his mobile several clients, each of them targeting a precise discovery protocol standard or sometimes even just a service domain or an application. Each client exposes a different user interface, and some of these are not designed to be used by classes of population such as elderly or children. And the clients must usually be downloaded from internet and installed in conventional ways
7. Here we present a system called UbiDisco (Ubiquitous Discovery system), which runs on mobile devices called UbiNodes. UbiDisco integrates and unifies multiple discovery mechanisms in an open and extensible architecture, adopting an user-center approach, and taking users’ situations and needs as starting point. We have done it combining the benefits of different discovery mechanisms, allowing the development of plugins for our system; where each plugin implements a single discovery mechanism, that can be also just made for a specific scenario, plus we’re adding to each specific protocol an overhead of information to guarantee a coherent user experience across the different plugins. Moreover plugins are mutually discoverable. -- In fact, UbiDisco enables a seamless combination of direct tag-based and indirect network-based discovery.
8. To foster intelligibility of our system to the users, we coined the term of Discovery Actions. A Discovery Action is the physical or mental act the user needs to perform in order to start operating the newly encountered resource. Thanks to the concept of Discovery Actions, UbiDisco abstracts away the differences between finding a resource using direct tag-based or an indirect network-based discovery. The user is represented by a list of "Actions" that includes examples of both approaches. The goal is to "Add Service", and the focus is on the related “action” not on the technology used. Some actions involve physical activity (e.g. taking a photo, pointing to an object) while others involve a mental activity (e.g. browsing a list of resources), but the user goes through similar and consistent interaction mechanisms. For testing purposes we prototyped three discovery actions: touch an RFID tag, take a photo of a QRCode, and type a number; let see a short demo. ---- New discovery mechanisms can be developed for addressing specific scenario. and a uniform user interaction mechanism,
9. We integrated these concepts in a remote-health-care scenario. A smart device, a T-Shirt sensor-enabled for blood pressure recording, is sent to the user -presumably an elderly with chronic dizzies- that need constant remote monitoring, avoiding him to go to the hospital for regular checks. The user is able to install the device without any further assistance, and and interact with it by an application also developed for this test, We made a video which shows this scenario.
10. UbiDisco runs on the top of a bigger project called UbiCollab, which aims to support collaboration in a wide arena of scenarios. The concept of human grid constitutes the grounds of UbiCollab. A human grid denotes a collection of (geographically distributed) users and the resources each of them has available in his physical vicinity, that therefore need first to be discovered. The interaction with the HumanGrid is mediated by a UbiNode, a smartphone which runs the whole UbiCollab distribution, including UbiDisco. Running UbiDisco on generic hardware, represent a further giustification of adopting a pluggable architecture for discovery: not all the devices that runs UbiDisco could be available an RFID reader or a camera. -- Collaboration happens in a wide arena of scenarios, from learning at school, remote meeting at work, remote healthcare. Our Idea of collaboration is embodied by the human grid, a collection of geographically distributed people and the resource each of them have available in their physical vicinity. In this grid, people can initiate a collaboration instance which works as a shared context for cooperation. A commonality among all the possible scenario is the need to external devices and services in order to enhance the user’s experience, and indeed the need of a service discovery mechanism. Collaboration covers a central role in our life, since is not relegated to meeting rooms, but it comes with people on-the-way both for work and leisure. The concept of human grid constitutes our vision of ubiquitous collaboration. A human grid denotes a collection of (geographically distributed) users and the resources each of them has available in their physical vicinity. The core part of the human grid is the collaboration instance. A CI represent the collaboration intention of the users, and works as shared context for cooperation.  UbiCollab’s vision is about supporting a natural, context-aware collaboration in a wide arena of scenarios using mobile and ubiquitous technologies. Users interacts with the human grid through a UbiNode: a smartphone running the UbiCollab platform. Systems make use of the information coming from the pervasive devices. People need tool tailored for supporting their own cooperation process, as well as connects with third-party collaboration services/devices.
12. -We are in the early stages of evaluating our platform on real users. UbiDisco and the implemented discovery actions have been subject to focus group and hands-on testing by end users of primarily technical background. Preliminary results have shown potential for improvements in the usability area, while the system has shown a good reliability. -We’re working to port the platform to Android and iOS devices -We need to investigate more discovery actions, like “say a name” or “point to a service” and more proxies
14. UbiCollab,