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Roy Want
Principal Engineer
Intel Research/CTG
Roy Want is a
Principal Engineer at Intel, a member of Intel Research/CTG, and leader of the
Ubiquity Strategic Research Project (SRP).* He is responsible for exploring
long-term strategic research opportunities in the area of Ubiquitous Computing.
Want received his B.A. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cambridge
University. He is the author or co-author of more than 25 publications in the
areas of mobile computing, distributed systems, wireless protocols, multimedia
systems and electronic identification. He also holds 39 patents in these areas.
Q1: How did you get involved in ubiquitous
computing, and what contributions have you made to this emerging area of
research?
A1: In the late 1980s, when I was working at Olivetti
Research, I became interested in developing smart telephones. This was the era
before cell phones were practical for widespread deployment. I wanted to figure
out how to augment the wired PBX telephone systems that were popular at that
time.
One feature that users commonly requested was the capability to
route incoming telephone calls to a location closest to the person for whom they
were intended. To solve this problem, I developed the Active Badge — a wearable
device that wirelessly communicates the wearer's identity to nodes in a network
of sensors deployed throughout a building. Our team built services that provided
location information, based on the sensor data, to applications that knew how to
control call delivery within the telephone system. As we later discovered, these
services also opened up the opportunity to build context-aware mobile computing
applications.
In 1991, I joined Xerox PARC's Ubiquitous Computing
program. Among other research efforts, I led the PARCTAB project and built one
of the first context-aware computers. Our goal was to explore the capabilities
and impact of mobile computers in an office setting. The system consisted of
palm-sized computers that communicated wirelessly with workstation-based
applications. The handheld device was unique in that it was aware of the room it
operated in and other people and devices in the locality. As a result, the
applications it supported could organize the data they displayed to take into
account the context of use. For example, if you wanted to print a document, the
nearest printer available at that location would be shown as the recommended
printer.
At Intel, I've continued to pursue my interest in ubiquitous
computing. My research currently focuses on the personal server concept, which
I'm developing along with my team as a means of enhancing the mobile computing
experience.
Q2: What is a personal server, and
how did you develop the concept for this device?
 A2: One of the main reasons handheld mobile computers are
severely handicapped is the limitation imposed by the small display and keyboard
inherent in their design. In looking at ways to improve mobile computing, we
focused on three technologies, which in combination, offer a potential solution:
high-density, small volume storage; low-power, high-performance processors, such
as StrongARM and XScale; and standardized, high-bandwidth radios, such as
Bluetooth.
The personal server represents the integration of these three
technologies. It's a small, mobile device that eventually will hold most of the
data you use from day to day. It has none of the standard physical input/output
capabilities — no keyboard, buttons or display. For this purpose, it relies on
the computing infrastructure that happens to be in the locality and short-range
wireless-connections to make use of these resources.
A simple way to
think about the concept is to ask this question: What makes your PC your PC? The
answer is that it's just the hard disk, which contains your data; the rest is
simply the access device. Using the personal server concept, we're virtualizing
the hard disk through a wireless connection to whatever computing device is
nearby and available.
Q3: How would I use the device? Can you provide an
example?
A3: Suppose you're traveling on business and
carrying your personal server. You could sit down in front of any PC that has
the necessary wireless capability and a small icon representing you would appear
in a corner of the screen. When you clicked on the icon, it would expand to a
much larger window, perhaps with a set of documents and applications that you
are currently using, and you could access them in the same way as if you were
sitting at your own computer.
One model we're exploring is making the
personal server very much like a Web server. The personal server system would
automatically launch a browser on the PC you were accessing, and within the
browser pages you would see iconic representation of your applications and data.
Q4: What are the advantages of the personal
server over other mobile computing models?
A4: One advantage
is convenience. In our design concept, the personal server is small — about the
size of a deck of playing cards — so it would be easy to carry with you wherever
you go. It could interact with any nearby interface, such as a desktop PC or an
information kiosk. It would not have to be directly accessible to the user, so
it could be in the bottom of a purse, in your pocket, or perhaps — in the future
— be part of your shoe. As long as you're in the vicinity of some computing
infrastructure, you would be able to access your data.
The personal
server also overcomes the display limitations of other mobile devices. Although
it is possible to access personal data through existing small-screen mobile
devices such as PDAs and cell phones, it is generally inconvenient, awkward, and
slow. The personal server has no display, but instead uses large-screen displays
in the local environment.
A wireless PDA or cell phone could also be
used as the target display for the personal server. It would have the small
screen limitation, but if nothing else is available it would have to do. In this
way we also introduce the concept of scrap computers: when PDAs become
inexpensive enough that they are left scattered around, in the same way we treat
pens and paper today, you could pick up any of these devices and through the
personal server it would, by association, become your device accessing your
data.
Another advantage is control over your data. With the personal
server, you wouldn't have to rely on Internet access to retrieve your data. And
because your data travels with you, you know that it is secure and you readily
have access to it.
Suppose you are traveling to a conference to give a
presentation in front of, say, 300 people. Would you want to rely on Internet
access to retrieve your slides from a remote server at your work site? The
connection might not be available, the server could be down, and there may be
firewall or other permission issues. Even if the connection can be made, it
might have latency issues and perform very sluggishly for the audience. Most
people would choose to bring their own laptop with a copy of the presentation,
to guarantee availability. Some might even carry an additional set of acetate
slides as a backup. The personal server concept would provide a level of
confidence close to the latter example.
Q5: Outside the office, what sorts of applications do you
envision for the device?
A5: There are numerous potential
applications. One possibility is that the world could be augmented with
information beacons that transmit information to your personal server. As you
walk by Starbucks, you might acquire a coupon for a discount latte. As you pass
restaurants or storefronts, menus and sales information could be captured. In a
train station, you might automatically receive a copy of the timetable.
The preferences for the type of information you are interested in
receiving, and the information you would like to export, could also be stored on
your personal server to control its operation. An export service is one that is
applied to other nearby devices. For instance, you might wish to have your
familiar speed dial numbers applied to any cell phone you are currently using.
In an automobile, you could automatically apply your preference for music or
temperature, or make seat adjustments. Essentially, any rental car could have
its user settings be the same as your own car's settings.
Another
application we've considered is personal health monitoring. In the case of
someone who has a diabetic condition, the personal server could connect to
cardiac and blood glucose monitors, acquiring data from sensors distributed on
the person's body. Then, when the person moves close to a PC connected to the
Internet, the data could be automatically downloaded for processing.
Once you find utility in carrying a personal server for its mainstream
uses, the secondary applications I've just described may be value-added products
for a new business.
Q6: Intel Research is known
for its collaboration with academia. Is Intel working with any universities to
develop the personal server?
A6: Yes. We're collaborating
with two universities to expand upon the personal server concept and develop
curriculum around it. We're giving the basic idea to groups of students who are
assigned design activities as part of their course work. At UC-Berkeley, we're
participating in a program whereby businesses propose technology concepts and
mechanical engineering students build the technology to the best of their
abilities, part of a class for one semester. At the University of Washington,
there's a capstone computer science class whose goal is to build software
applications on top of the basic hardware. We gave them ten development systems,
and they have built a number of intriguing software prototypes.
Q7: What aspects of the personal server are you working on
within Intel, and what is the status of your
research?
A7: We're working on both the hardware and the
software systems required to support the concept. Currently we're putting
together some of the nascent protocol stacks and software components that are
being established by our industry. By combining these components in novel
configurations, we can find their strengths and limitations, and recommend how
the standards can be improved.
Bluetooth is one of the components we're
looking at, and UPnP is another. Since UPnP is included in Windows XP, this is
an important part of our PC implementation. By using Bluetooth and the PAN
profile, we are able to establish a TCP/IP connection between a PC and a
personal server and then discover UPnP services on the personal server.
We have built prototypes of the device and have demonstrated them at a
number of events, including the Intel Developer Forum this spring. You can place
the prototype device near a PC that is wirelessly enabled and automatically
launch a browser that connects to a mini-website on your personal server. You
can then view data in the same way you would view data on any conventional
Internet Web site.
Q8: When can we expect to see personal servers in the
marketplace? What needs to happen before they are
viable?
A8: There's a possibility that we could see early
versions of the device on the market within three or four years. We still have
some challenges to address, such as the availability of high-density storage.
Higher storage density provides more utility for the personal server concept.
With storage density roughly doubling each year, we should have appropriate
storage devices available for our purposes within three years or so.
In
order to create a product and market around the personal server concept, we also
need a wider deployment of wireless infrastructure. We're seeing Bluetooth begin
to roll out, and we're seeing 802.11 and its various incarnations becoming
established. Within three years, the clear winners will begin to emerge and
there will be wider deployment of whatever standards are adopted.
The
other defining variable in the success equation is power. To make the personal
server attractive, it must be "always on" but assume a low-power state when not
in use. The device must have a suitable power density in its power source, so
that it doesn't have to be charged on an hourly basis, but instead could be
conveniently charged on a more practical interval of, say, one week. Within
three years, some of the power issues will have improved, through advances in
processor and wireless technology and potentially in micro-fuel cell technology,
which could lead to significant increases in battery energy densities.
Q9: What are the key roles that Intel will play
in transforming the personal server from concept to
reality?
A9: Intel will provide the high-performance,
low-power processors that are required to build personal servers. We are also at
the forefront of developing and refining the standards to support the concept,
such as UPnP, Bluetooth, and 802.11x.
Finally, Intel is pioneering some
of the new storage technologies to increase storage density. If these
technologies are successful, it will result in an order of magnitude leap in
memory capacity. Not only will this make the personal server a viable concept
but it will inspire a whole range of additional new products.
The Ubiquity Strategic Research Project (SRP) is a collaboration with Gunner Danneels, Muthu Kumar and Peter Adamson of the Emerging Platforms Lab (EPL); Jim Kardach and Graham Kirby of the Mobile Platforms Group (MPG); and Gaetano Borriello, director of Intel Research Seattle. The project's core team members are Roy Want, Trevor Pering,
Murali Sundar, John Light and Alex Nguyen.
In addition to basic research, the team has a charter to put Intel on the map in this area of research through publications in premier conferences, workshops, technical program committees and through top-tier university collaborations. Projects such as Ubiquity are well suited to making connections between Intel business units and the new Intel University Labs, recently established by Intel Research, such as those in Seattle, Berkeley and Pittsburgh (associated with the University of Washington, UC-Berkeley, and Carnegie-Mellon University, respectively). SRPs can provide the missing link to connect a University Lab with business groups, other organizations such as the Emerging Platforms Lab (EPL); and engineering resources, such as core Intel technologies. For this reason, the Seattle and
Berkeley Labs, and Ubiquity already have a strong connection.
The Ubiquity project was launched nearly a year ago. To date, the project team has filed four patents and published two journal articles, with three more in the
pipeline.
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