Ubiquitous Computing Projects in the World

Please update this page with a description of your UbiComp (systems) project. The template for project description is something along the lines of (but feel free to add additional stuff):

• Project Name
• Description
• Where / Research Group
• Status - active or not.
• Dates of project period.
• Web Site
• 1-2 Key References

Activity-Based Computing Project

Generally speaking, contemporary computer technology is designed according to an application- and document-centered model. This model enables users to work with specific, targeted applications that support the manipulation of particular kinds of information and performing specific tasks, like writing a letter or making a budget. This model is deeply embedded in the hardware, operating systems and user interface software, as well as the development frameworks available today. It has proven well-suited for office work at a desktop, but the personal and task-oriented approach provides little support for the aggregation of resources and tools required in carrying out higher-level activities. It is left to the user to aggregate such resources and tools in meaningful bundles according to the activity at hand, and manual reconfiguration of this aggregation is often required when multi-tasking between parallel activities.

In Activity-Based Computing - ABC - the basic computational unit is no longer the file (e.g. a document) or the application (e.g. MS Word) but the activity of a user. The end-user is directly supported by computational activities which can be initiated, suspended, stored, resumed, and shared on any computing device in the infrastructure at any point in time, handed over to other persons, or shared among several persons. Furthermore, the execution of activities is adapted to the usage context of the users, i.e. making activities context-aware. Activity-Based Computing has emerged out of close attention to hospital work and hence has a strong medical focus. It may - as suggested by others - work in many other domains.

Key references:

• Jakob E. Bardram and Henrik B. Christensen. Pervasive Computing Support for Hospitals: An Overview of the Activity-Based Computing Project. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 6(1):44-51, 2007. pdf
• Jakob E. Bardram. Activity-Based Computing: Support for Mobility and Collaboration in Ubiquitous Computing. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 9(5):312-322, 2005. pdf