Wearable Computing Group
The Wearable Computing Group is a research group within the computer and information science department at the University of Oregon that focuses on the development and evaluation of wearable and mobile computing technology for facilitating and augmenting human collaboration.
Started in 1995 by Professor Zary Segell and Ph.D. student Gerd Kortuem, the group specializes in exploring the community aspects of wireless, wearable, and peer-to-peer technologies.[1]
Personal Area Network
P2P computing and wireless network technologies have made possible the design of ad hoc networks of mobile devices to support the ad hoc networks of the people who wear them. This fundamental unit, cited by Kortuem and other computing researchers, is known as the personal area network.
Kortuem treats personal area networks as building blocks of a dynamic community of networks with emergent capabilities of its own.[2] The community of personal area network users within a geographic location functions as a wireless mesh network, dynamically self-organizing a cloud of broadband connectivity as nodes come in and out of physical proximity, providing always-on Internet connection to members. With Bluetooth technology, members of the communities allow engagement in more timely information exchange face-to-face, and WiFi technologies provide the infrastructure for neighborhood-wide and Internet-wide communication.
Auranet
Auranet is the University of Oregon's Wearable Computing group's implementation of a wearable community. The Auranet is the network of computing devices that exist in a person's social space or "Aura". The Auranet is where people and their personal computing devices have face-to-face encounters.[3]
The idea of a wearable community is based on the belief that non-monetary exchange of value is the essence of community. A community is about helping each other, about shared values, and creating and managing mutually beneficial relationships. In that respect, wearable communities are similar to community websites on the Internet. Their common goal is to use technology to enhance the spirit of cooperation. But what community sites do in cyberspace, wearable communities do in real life.[3]
Distributed reputation system
Wearable devices can share bandwidths by acting as nodes in an ad hoc wireless network, which can exchange media and messages using links between individual nodes to transmit data. However, when members of the communities allow their computers to automatically exchange information, issues of trust and privacy intervene.[4]
In order for mobile ad hoc communities to self-organize properly, a trust system is needed to make people feel secure about their privacy and trust to allow effective contribution of their personal area network. The group has therefore prototyped a distributed reputation system that uses encryption techniques to secure wearable community infrastructure.[4]
See also
- Wearable augmented task-list interchange device, a system developed by the group.
References
- ↑ Rheingold, H. (2002). Smart Mobs: the Next Social Revolution. Perseus, Cambridge. p.169
- ↑ Rheingold, H. (2002). Smart Mobs: the Next Social Revolution. Perseus, Cambridge. p. 170
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 http://www.cs.uoregon.edu/research/wearables/index.html
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Rheingold, H. (2002). Smart Mobs: the Next Social Revolution. Perseus, Cambridge. p. 172
This article "Wearable Computing Group" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Wearable Computing Group. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
