
Prior to this workshop Professor Quigley was asked to comment on some of the grand challenges he saw for User Modelling and Ubiquitous Computing. The following are the challenges he posed:
- Are user models and context data so fundamental that future UbiComp operating systems need to have them built in as first order features of the OS? Or in your opinion is this the wrong approach? Discuss.
- There are many facets of a ubiquitous computing system from low-level sensor technologies in the environment, through the collection, management, and processing of context data through to the middleware required to enable the dynamic composition of devices and services envisaged. Where do User Models reside within this? Are they something only needed occasionally (or not at all) for some services or experiences or needed for all?
- Ubicomp is a model of computing in which computation is everywhere and computer functions are integrated into everything. It will be built into the basic objects, environments, and the activities of our everyday lives in such a way that no one will notice its presence. If so, how do we know what the system knows, assumes or infers about us in its decision making.
- Ubicomp represents an evolution from the notion of a computer as a single device, to the notion of a computing space comprising personal and peripheral computing elements and services all connected and communicating as required; in effect, “processing power so distributed throughout the environment that computers per se effectively disappear” or the so-called Calm Computing. The advent of ubicomp does not mean the demise of the desktop computer in the near future. Is Ubiquitous User Modelling the key problem to solve in moving people from desktop/mobile computing into UbiComp use scenarios? If not, what is?
- Context data can be provided, sensed or inferred. Context includes information from the person (physiological state), the sensed environment (environmental state) and computational environment (computational state) that can be provided to alter an applications behaviour. How much or little of this should be incorporated into individual UbiComp User Models?