The Next Wave of Computing: Injecting Intelligence into the Real World
Pervasive computing is about making the real world (and everything in it) smarter through the use of small, wireless, battery-powered computers that can be put anywhere or attached to anything. Pervasive applications range from automatically watering your plants when they need water to analyzing millions of containers as they move goods throughout the world. Operating for years without intervention, pervasive applications are making the real world smarter, safer, greener, and more fun.
This talk contains three main components: an overview of pervasive applications and their requirements, the technical innovation required to bring high level logic systems (such as Java) to embedded computing, and tips and techniques for building applications in this new domain.
Application scenarios include monitoring the flow of people, analyzing energy and water use for conservation, and proactive detection and reporting of potential failures and maintenance conditions, such as on bridges, airplanes, and industrial equipment.
To solve the needs of these applications, a system architecture spanning from real world intelligent objects through to the Internet is presented, and the common object model that unifies such a wide range of computing platforms. To illustrate the impact of this platform, a simple pervasive application is developed in real time, showing how pervasive computing can be put to work and the development paradigms lead to efficient real world intelligent applications.