Pervasive computing

Abstract

The first mass;produced pervasive computing devices are starting to appear-the AutoPC, the Internetconnected ScreenFridge, and the combination Microwave Oven/Home Banking terminal. Although taken separately they appear bizarre, we believe they will play an important role in a world of pervasive computing. Specifically, these devices will accept or deliver information in the context in which it will be most useful, decoupling the information from the context in which it was originally created. We describe an extensible and modular architecture called Rome (to which all roads lead) that a.ddresses this information-routing problem while leveraging significant existing work on composable Internet services and adaptation for heterogeneous devices. Rome's central abstraction is the concept of a trigger, a self-describing chunk of information bundled with the spatial and/or temporal constraints that define the context in which the information should be delivered. The Rome architecture manages triggers at a centralized infrastructure server and arranges for the triggers to be distributed to pervasive computing devices that can detect when the trigger conditions have been satisfied and alert the user accordingly. The main contribution of the architecture is an infrastructure-centric approach to the trigger management problem. We argue that pervasive computing devices benefit from extensive support in the form of of infrastructure computing