CS 7470 Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing
Final Exam for Graduate Students, Fall 2010
Gregory D. Abowd
Due: Tuesday, December 14, 5:40pm
Directions: Answer any two of the following essay questions. Your answer should
be in the range of 750-1000 words in length, and should contain references to the
relevant scientific literature (references do not count in the overall word count). Be
sure to answer each part of the question as directly as you can. Your answer will be
graded based on how effectively you address the question, how you demonstrate
knowledge of the literature, your ability to synthesize across different readings from
class, and your creativity in the answer. The quality of your English writing will also
be important. When you have completed the exam, you must turn in a hard-copy
version to Dr. Abowd. A box will be placed outside of Dr. Abowd’s TSRB office (329)
and you may also turn in your exam there. Emailed versions of your exam will not
be accepted. You may use any online source to assist you with this exam, but you
are expected to work on the exam by yourself. However, you are encouraged to get
others to proofread your answers to catch writing errors.
1. (Impact of Ubicomp) You read a variety of papers that set forth the vision and
challenges of ubiquitous computing, starting with Weiser’s Scientific American
article, and including a Communications of the ACM article by Weiser, the chapter
by Roy Want in the class text book, the collection of articles in the inaugural
issue of IEEE Pervasive Computing magazine and Abowd’s article on software
engineering challenges and ubicomp. An additional article you should read for
this question is M. Satyanarayanan’s article entitled, “Pervasive Computing:
vision and challenges,” which appeared in IEEE Personal Communications
(Volume 8, Issue 4, pages 10-17, August 2001, available through IEEExplore and
the GT Library, and various other places online).
A. (10 points) What do these papers have to say about the potential impact of
ubiquitous/pervasive computing on research in all areas of related to
computing and electronics? Use concrete examples from these papers (and
others) to back up your arguments.
B. (20 points) Using your experience in CS 7470 this semester, discuss the
advantages and disadvantages of a single course on mobile and ubiquitous
computing. Be sure to consider all aspects of the course (lectures, readings,
projects, how-to seminars).
C. (20 points) Consider an alternative approach to teaching graduate students
about mobile and ubiquitous computing, in which the material and
experiences provided in this class are distributed as modules in other core
computing, electrical engineering or design-oriented courses. Given the
advantages and disadvantages you discussed in the previous part of this
question, which approach (single course or distributed modules) would you
favor and why?
2. (RFID technology and privacy) We had a guest lecture on RFID technology and
have spent a lot of time in class discussing context-aware computing
applications and concerns regarding privacy.
A. (10 points) As a technology, how does RFID work? What different forms of
RFID solutions exist and how are they distinguished from each other?
B. (20 points) If you were to use RFID technology in a context-aware
application, what kind of context information would you be able to provide?
Give concrete examples of at least three different pieces of contextual
information you could provide using RFID.
C. (10 points) What are the concerns regarding privacy that result from the use
of RFID technology? (5 points) Provide an example of how privacy concerns
can be addressed with RFID using a modification of how RFID itself works. (5
points) Provide an example of how privacy concerns can be addressed
through the way existing RFID is incorporated into an existing application.
3. (What’s in a word?) In Dey’s chapter in the textbook (and in other writings by
Dey that were supplemental readings for the course), there are definitions
provided for context and context-awareness. In the Abowd et al. article in the
inaugural issue of IEEE Pervasive Computing, there is a definition of another
important class of applications in ubicomp, those that provide automated
capture. For the first part of this question, you are to choose either contextawareness or automated capture to answer the following questions.
A. (25 points) Pick either context-awareness or automated capture and answer
the following question. Indicate explicitly at the beginning of your answer
which application category you chose._ In class, we argued that the definition
for context-aware applications (or automated capture) is too broad. Argue
why it is too broad and provide a revised definition that narrows the
definition appropriately. You must provide an example of an application (use
of context, or use of capture) that is inappropriately allowed in the original
definition that would not be allowed in your revised definition.
B. (25 points) In the Abowd et al. article in the inaugural issue of IEEE
Pervasive Computing, the authors also discuss natural interaction and
everyday computing. Are these the same kind of application themes as
context-awareness or automated capture? Using specific examples from the
literature, explain why or why not.
4. (Getting at the surface of things) We had a guest lecture on the technologies
underlying touchscreens and surface interaction. In this lecture, Craig Tashman
described five different technologies that support a touch interaction—resistive,
surface acoustic wave, projective capacitance, frustrated total internal reflection,
and diffuse iluminescence.
A. (30 points, 15 per technology for A and B)Describe how two of these
touch technologies work. You can use figures to assist in your explanation. If
you “borrow” these figures from some other source, be sure to cite your
source.
B. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of the two technologies you
described above. You should address issues such as form factor, scalability,
multitouch capabilities and cost in your answer, as well as any other
dimension you think might provide a useful comparison.
C. (20 points) Today we are witnessing the emergence of smartphones and
tablet devices such as the iPad in a world that was already full of content
available on the World Wide Web. There is an increasing desire to make the
content we were used to accessing on desktops and laptops available
through a browser on these new devices. But the interaction model on these
new devices is different. Explain how interaction, specifically the kind of
input events available at the interface, is different on these touchscreen
devices. As a programmer, how can you make a web browsing experience
on these touchscreen devices comparable to the desktop experience? You
do not have to consider the important issue of screen size in this answer,
except to the extent it directly supports feedback on input events.