Ubiquitous & Pervasive Computing  2012S

Course Description:

"The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it." Mark Weiser, "Computer for the 21th Century," Scientific American, September, 1991.

Ubiquitous and pervasive computing (UbiComp/PerCom) is about how computing will be used in the future. It is about moving beyond the traditional desktop computing model, into embedding computing into everyday objects and everyday activities. The vision is that the virtual (computing) space will be seamlessly integrated with our physical environment, such that we as people cease to take notice of computing artifacts. In this course, we will focus specifically on the following topics to realize this vision of ubiquitous computing:

• UbiComp vision and criticism

• Ambient and tangible interfaces

• Sensing and feedbacks

• Persuasive technologies

• Green computing

• UbiComp tools

This is a research-level course with the goal of preparing graduate students and (senior) undergraduate students for research in the area of ubiquitous and pervasive computing. This course will have four main components: in-class discussion, a few mini-assignments, a big semester-long project, and many paper reading & presentation. We expect "in-class discussion" to dominate this course's learning process. Papers will be used as references to generate discussion as well as ideas for course projects. In the course projects, students will form teams to explore actual design and prototype of ubiquitous computing systems.

Prerequisite:

• Like to verbally communicate your ideas (we have not decided whether to use Chinese or English for discussion)

• Good programming and (some) hardware experiences (design and prior HCI experience are plus-es)

• Some creativity

Teaching Staff and Office Hours:

• Instructor: Hao-hua Chu (朱浩華), Room 518, email: hchu (at) csie.ntu.edu.tw

• Teaching assistant: Ted (賴宗德), Room 336/338, email: tedlai (at) csie.ntu.edu.tw

Course WiKi Page:

• Only for course participants (wiki)

Grading:

• Class discussion (15%)

• Assignments (15%)

• Final Project (70%)