A dialectic perspective on the future of ubicomp. My contribution to panel discussion with Daniel Roggen and Romit Roy Choudhury. For more infos goto cosdeo.teco.edu

1. A device-free future of
ubicomp?
till.riedel
@teco.edu
#cosdeo2013 #ubicomp2013

2. Ubicomp was a lot about interacting with things…

3. …and we build cheap embedded devices
…to hide sensing and computation everywhere and build infrastructures
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4. Wearable computing was
always the antithesis to the
appliance-based
approach
It only became sexy because
of the ubiquity of cheap
infrastructure and powerful
smartphones
… but what comes next??
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5. applied dialectics
Thesis Anti-Thesis
Re-use existing infrastructure
Reduce user instrumentation
Enable novel contexts
wearable device-free
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6. Device Free vs. Device Bound
Device-Bound Activity Recognition Sensor
Device-Free Activity Recognition Sensor
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7. So is „device-free“ the (next) future of
(ubiquitous) computing?
Thesis Anti-Thesis
Synthesis
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change
conflict

8. The devices shall return….
• Organic Printed Sensor RFID
• Will enable printing remote
readable sensors/transducer
• Device-free“ computation by
(uncontrolled) Signal
Superimposing
• computation on the channel 
up to 1000x lower energy, faster
transmission for 1000 node net
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9. a) device-free is a necessary next step!
• New possibilities
• New constraints
• New thinking
• New knowlege/views:
• On RF-Channel
• New Machine-Learning Tools
• New Models
• Complex interactions
“The only thing we know about the future is that it
will be different.” (hopefully)
b) device-free != free of devices
c) synthesis of approaches will bring real change
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