I recently bought a GPS (Garmin Mobile 10) that works with my WM5 Smartphone. In the process of trying to install the Garmin Mobile XT application (which was very problematic and a huge pain, but I digress ….), I ended up uninstalling Google Maps.

When I went to download and reinstall it though, I noticed that they have a new beta feature (My Location) that shows you where you are. It can either use a GPS, or use cell tower information. Basically, it sees which cell tower your phone is signed up to (and what signals it is seeing from others), and uses this to estimate where you are to within a 1000 meters.

This is interesting, because we did it the same way back when there used to be AMPS / CDPD and Palm IIIs and Vs with cellular modems. Our project was called Agents2Go, and we published a paper about this in the MCommerce workshop of Mobicom in 01. I remember that Muthu et al from AT&T had a similar paper in MobiDE that year as well.

The problem at that time was that there was no publicly accessible database of all cell tower locations. Also, we heard informally from at least one telco that while doing this for research was Ok, if anyone ever tried to make money from it they would want to be a part of the loop. I guess Google has found a way to work with the various telcos ? Or maybe in the interim cell tower ids and locations have been made public knowledge ?

Of course Google maps also works with GPS, except that it refuses to work with my Garmin. I’ve tried all the tricks that a search on Google will reveal (mainly, setting the serial port used by Bluetooth to talk to the GPS) , but to no avail

A group of UMBC students working with Professor Zary Segall have built a prototype music player that senses its user’s emotional state and level of activity and picks appropriate music. The prototype system uses BodyMedia’s SenseWear, which detects continuous data from the wearer’s skin and wirelessly transmits the data stream to the xpod prototype. The physiological data includes energy expenditure (calories burned), duration of physical activity, number of steps taken, and sleep/wake states. A neural network system is used to learn associations between these biometric parameters and the user’s preferences for music and the resulting model is then used to dynamically construct the xpod’s playlist. Read more about the xpod prototype in this recent paper:

XPod a human activity and emotion aware mobile music player, Sandor Dornbush, Kevin Fisher, Kyle McKay, Alex Prikhodko and Zary Segall.

XPOD is a prototype portable music player that can sense a user’s context — what she is doing, her level of activity, mood, etc. — and that to refine its playlist. The device monitors several external variables from a streaming version of the BodyMedia SenseWear to model the user’s context and predict the most appropriate music genre via a neural network.

Here is what a smart doorknob can do.

“When you approach the door and you’re carrying groceries, it opens and lets you in. This doorknob is so smart, it can let the dog out but it won’t let six dogs come back in.

It will take FedEx packages and automatically sign for you when you’re not there. If you’re standing by the door, and a phone call comes in, the doorknob can tell you that ‘you’ve got a phone call from your son that I think you should take.”

This smart doorknob is part of a MIT research project called “Internet of Things” (see IHT). An interesting thing about this system is that it relies on the extensive usage of RFID tags. When it comes to RFID technology, some people are very worried, and some others are very excited.

The Internet of Things is the seventh in the series of “ITU Internet Reports” published since 1997 by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union. The report will be available in mid November and include chapters on enabling technologies, the shaping of the market, emerging challenges and implications for the developing world, as well as comprehensive statistical tables covering over 200 economies. Here’s an AP story about today’s announcement at the World Summit on the Information Society [2] in Tunis.

Machines and objects to overtake humans on the Internet: ITU, AP, Nov 17

Machines will take over from humans as the biggest users of the Internet in a brave new world of electronic sensors, smart homes, and tags that track users’ movements and habits, the UN’s telecommunications agency predicted.

In a report entitled “Internet of Things”, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) outlined the expected next stage in the technological revolution where humans, electronic devices, inanimate objects and databases are linked by a radically transformed Internet.

“It would seem that science fiction is slowly turning into science fact in an ‘Internet of Things’ based on ubiquitous network connectivity,” the report said Thursday, saying objects would take on human characteristics thanks to technological innovation.
…more…

IBM researchers have prototyped SoulPad, which uses an auto-configuring operating system along with a hibernated virtual machine on a USB disk to enable a user to suspend one’s personal computing state on one PC and resume it on another. The USB disk essentially carries the soul of the user’s PC while the host PCs provide environments where the soul can come alive. For more information, see this paper, which receive the best paper award at the 3rd International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services:

Reincarnating PCs with Portable SoulPads, Ramon Caceres, Casey Carter, Chandra Narayanaswami, M. T. Raghunath, Proc of ACM/USENIX MobiSys 2005, pp. 65-78.

The ability to walk up to any computer, personalize it, and use it as one’s own has long been a goal of mobile computing research. We present SoulPad, a new approach based on carrying an auto-configuring operating system along with a suspended virtual machine on a small portable device. With this approach, the computer boots from the device and resumes the virtual machine, thus giving the user access to his personal environment, including previously running computations. SoulPad has minimal infrastructure requirements and is therefore applicable to a wide range of conditions, particularly in developing countries. We report our experience implementing SoulPad and using it on a variety of hardware configurations. We address challenges common to systems similar to SoulPad, and show that the SoulPad model has significant potential as a mobility solution.

Researchers in Singapore have developed a human version of the classic arcade game Pacman, superimposing the virtual 3D game world on to city streets and buildings.

Merging different technologies such as GPS, Bluetooth, virtual reality, wi-fi, infrared and sensing mechanisms, the augmented reality game allows gamers to play in a digitally-enhanced maze-like version of the real world.

It has been selected as one of the world’s top 100 high-impact and visionary technologies and will showcased at the Wired NextFest 2005 in Chicago, US, which runs from June 24 to 26.

IBM Zurich comes out with miniature data storage with data storage density of 1 TB per square inch –

“Given the rapidly increasing data volumes that are downloaded onto mobile devices such as cell phones and PDAs, there is a growing demand for suitable storage media with more and more capacity. At CeBIT, IBM for the first time shows the prototype of the MEMS*- assembly of a nanomechanical storage system known internally as the “millipede” project. Using revolutionary nanotechnology, scientists at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, Switzerland, have made it to the millionths of a millimeter range, achieving data storage densities of more than one terabit (1000 gigabit) per square inch, equivalent to storing the content of 25 DVDs on an area the size of a postage stamp.”

This is another scary technology story…

Lexus cars may be vulnerable to viruses that infect them via mobile phones. Landcruiser 100 models LX470 and LS430 have been discovered with infected operating systems that transfer within a range of 15 feet.

A one-day Workshop on Ambient Intelligence - Agents for Ubiquitous Environments will be held in 25 or 26 July 2005 in Ultrecht, The Netherlands in conjunction with the 2005 Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems. Submitted papers are due 14 March, 2005.

The merging of virtual environments, mobile communication and sensors, allows the emergence of a new vision: Ambient Intelligence, a pervasive and unobtrusive intelligence in the surrounding environment supporting the activities and interactions of the users. Ambient intelligence appears poised to cause remarkable changes in the way
people live. With digital information, the ease of interaction between humans and computers can be greatly increased by broadening the interface media available and allowing mobile and portable communication to become free of inhibiting wires and stationary units. The result of ambient intelligence is ultimately a more empowered computer with the benefits of added convenience, time and cost savings, and possibilities for increased safety, security, and entertainment. This technology has the potential to significantly impact business and government processes, as well as private life.

Ambient Intelligence represents a vision of the future where we shall be surrounded by electronic environments, sensitive and responsive to people. Ambient intelligence technologies are expected to combine concepts of ubiquitous computing and intelligent systems putting humans in the centre of technological developments. Ambient
Intelligence emphasises greater user-friendliness, more efficient services support, user-empowerment, and support for human interactions. Software Agent (SA) technology is promising in this field and thus, should have a major role in Ambient Intelligence development due to SA characteristics such as autonomy and mobility. For instance, a user could launch an agent from his mobile phone and disconnect itself from the network. Its agent roams the net
of providers and afterwards submits its findings to user through SMS messages.

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