The Ubiquitous Web

Ubiquitous Computing

The Ubiquitous Web

• Synthesis between the World Wide Web and Ubiquitous Computing
  • Applicable to home networks, offices, factory floor, mobile, cars, etc.
• Making it much easier to build distributed applications across a diversity of networked devices
  • Enabling applications to be created using markup, style sheets and scripts
• Context awareness - dynamically adapting to users, devices and environmental conditions
  • Exploiting the features of each device, and not dropping to the lowest common denominator
  • Giving users the means to select the modes of interaction that best meet their needs, subject to the capabilities of the devices
  • Extending device capabilities through access to network services and through combination with other devices
  • Providing remote user interfaces to devices and services
    • W3C/IETF collaboration on protocol for passing DOM events

The Ubiquitous Web

• Application mobility - enabling users to seamlessly switch between devices whilst continuing with the same application
  • seamless in the sense of not requiring significant conscious effort from users
• A greater focus on the network rather than on particular devices, and an associated need to address trust, security, privacy and identity
  • Combining local information with network-based information sources
  • Your data lives in the network, but applications need to allow for temporary lapses in connectivity
• Providing the Web developer with a clean model of distributed applications
  • URI's for describing devices, services and sessions
  • A means to pass DOM events and updates between devices
  • A Web-based approach to resource discovery and binding within temporary and persistent sessions

Workshop Goals

The main objective of this workshop is to help W3C to build a better understanding of the Ubiquitous Web, and to identify potential areas for standardization:

• To explore the vision of the Web as a distributed applications platform that works across a wide range of devices in areas such as offices, home networks, mobile, automotive, aviation, etc. with the potential for increasing the range and reducing the cost of developing and deploying such applications.
• To explain how current W3C work fits into this vision, e.g. work on Web Application API's, Delivery Context Interfaces, Device Descriptions, Multimodal Architecture, etc.
• To identify and prioritize additional areas which would benefit from standardization, in particular, the integration of sessions and device coordination into web applications.

Example: smart meeting

You are scheduled to meet with colleagues and plan to show a presentation using your cellphone as a controller and a networked wall screen as the display device.

• Your slides are on the Web and linked from the agenda
• The corporate web server knows such things as:
  • Who is expected to attend the meeting and the meeting agenda
  • A floor plan for your building and what resources are available in each meeting room
  • Details of your mobile phone and other personal devices
• When you arrive in the meeting room
  • The Bluetooth interface on the wall screen senses whose phones and notebooks are in the general neighborhood
  • The meeting application running on the corporate server compares this to who is expected to attend
  • Your phone is automatically set up to allow you to present your slides
  • The audio and slide transitions are captured by the network for people who want to review it at a later date