Skip to main content
Log in

Integrating the Physical World with the Web to Enable Context-Enhanced Mobile Services

  • Published:
Mobile Networks and Applications Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This work has its roots in the HP Labs Cooltown project, whose core principle is that the integration of our physical world with the Web offers unique opportunities to enable ubiquitous computing applications. This paper describes our latest results in building a model and a software architecture called the Web presence manager (WPM) to support this physical-virtual integration. This software layer implements and specifies the services and information provided by Web representations of physical entities such as people, places, or things. We detail an extensive context-enhanced media-oriented application built on top of our platform. Our application enables mobile and context-aware access to personal contents and rendering on local appliances in a variety of ubiquitous computing environments.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Apache Tomcat: http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat

  2. B.N.S.N. Adams and RoyWant, Context-aware computing applications, in: Proc. Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications http://jakarta.apache. IEEE (Dec. 1994).

  3. C. Bisdikian, J. Christensen, J. Davis, II, M. Ebling, G. Hunt, W. Jerome, H. Lei, S. Maes and S. Daby, Enabling Location-Based Applications, First ACM Mobile Commerce Workshop, Rome, Italy, (July 2001).

  4. B. Brumitt, B. Meyers, J. Krumm, A. Kern and S. Shafer, EasyLiving: Technologies for intelligent environments, in: Proc. of HUC 2000, Bristol, UK (2000).

  5. D. Caswell and P. Debaty, Creating Web Representations for Places, in Proc. of HUC2K, Bristol, UK.

  6. G. Chen and D. Kotz, A survey of context-aware mobile computing research, Department of Computer Science, Dartmouth College, Technical Report TR2000–381.

  7. D. Das, G. Manjunath, V. Krishnan, and P. Reddy, HotSpot! A service delivery environment for nomadic users system architecture, HPL technical report HPL-2002–134.

  8. P. Debaty and D. Caswell, Uniform Web presence architecture for people, places and things, IEEE personal communications magazine (Aug. 2001).

  9. P. Debaty and T. Duebendorfer, Aggregating local appliances and services to extend the functionalities of a Web browser, in: Proceedings of the First Appliance Aggregation Workshop (aaw’02) (2002).

  10. A. Dey, D. Salber and G. Abowd, A conceptual framework and a toolkit for supporting the rapid prototyping of context-aware applications, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Journal 16(2–4) (2001) 97–166.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. M. Fleck, et al., From informing to remembering: Deploying a ubiquitous system in an interactive science museum, IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine (April-June 2002).

  12. http://www.cooltown.com/dev/download.asp

  13. Jetty: http://jetty.mortbay.org/jetty/index.html

  14. Jini: http://www.jini.org

  15. T. Kindberg, Implementing physical hyperlinks using ubiquitous identifier resolution, in: 11th international world wide web conference (2001)http://www.cooltown.com/dev/download.

  16. T. Kindberg and J. Barton, A Web-based nomadic computing system, Computer Networks 35(4) (2001) 443–456.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. T. Kindberg, et al., People, places, things: Web presence for the real world, Mobile Networks and Applications 7(5) (2002) 365–376.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. L. Kleinrock, Nomadicity: anytime, anywhere in a disconnected world, Mobile Networks and Applications 1(4) (1997) 351–357.

    Google Scholar 

  19. H. Naguib and G. Coulouris, Location information management, in: Proceedings of Ubicomp 2001, Atlanta, USA (Oct 2001).

  20. S. Ponnekanti, B. Lee, A. Fox, P. Hanrahan and T. Winograd, Icrafter: A service framework for ubiquitous computing environments, in: Proc. of Ubicomp 2001, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (2001).

  21. RendezVous: http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/rendezvous.html

  22. Resource Description Framework (RDF): http://www.w3.org/RDF/

  23. M. Román, et al., Gaia: A middleware infrastructure to enable active spaces, IEEE Pervasive Computing 74–83 (Oct-Dec 2002)http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/rendezvous.

  24. Standard Upper Ontology (SUO) Working Group: http://suo.ieee.org/

  25. N. Streitz, P. Tandler, C. Mller-Tomfelde and S. Konomi, Roomware: Towards the next generation of human-computer interaction based on an integrated design of real and virtual worlds, Human-Computer Interaction in the New Millenium (2001), Addison Wesley, pp. 551–576.

  26. M. Weiser, Some computer science issues in ubiquitous computing, Communications of the ACM 36(7) (1993) 74–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. UPnP: http://www.upnp.org

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Philippe Debaty.

Additional information

Philippe Debaty is researchr at Hewlett-Packard Labs, Palo Alto, California. He currently works in the area of context-aware computing and mobility, with a specific focus on personal medias. He previously worked in the Hewlett-Packard Cooltown project on enabling pervasive computing using open Web technologies. He holds a M.S. in computer science from the Ecole Centrale de Lyon, France. He joined Hewlett-Packard Labs in February 2000, following his MS studies.

Patrick Goddi is a researcher at Hewlett-Packard Labs, Palo Alto, California. He currently works in the area of ubiquitous computing. He previously worked in the Hewlett-Packard Cooltown project on enabling pervasive computing using open web technologies. He holds a M.S. in computer science from california State University, Chico.

Alex Vorbau is a researcher in the Mobile and Media Systems Lab at HP Labs, Palo Alto. His current research interests are in the area of context-enabled sharing, linking, and annotation of personal media. Previous work included the HP Cooltown project, the development of a single sign-on solution for the external HP web and a Distributed Computing Environment worldwide cell system for HP. He holds a BS in Computer Science from California Polytechnic State University.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Debaty, P., Goddi, P. & Vorbau, A. Integrating the Physical World with the Web to Enable Context-Enhanced Mobile Services. Mobile Netw Appl 10, 385–394 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11036-005-1552-2

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11036-005-1552-2

Keywords

Navigation