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Ubiquitous Computing Applications

Ubiquitous computing places humans in the centre of environments saturated with computing and wireless communications capabilities, yet gracefully integrated, so that technology recedes in the background of everyday activities. Indeed, the vision of an activated world is action oriented and rather than dictate, it follows and enhances human behaviour. This vision of seamless cohabitation of the world by humans and computers was first discussed in Mark Weiser’s article "The Computer for the 21st Century," where it was stated that “the most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.” Ubiquitous computing has emerged as one of the principal technologies that could lead to the achievement of the Ambient Intelligence (AmI) vision.

The AmI world then, is a world largely defined by ubiquitous computing applications. But such applications present an altogether new set of requirements: they are developed at the many layers of the physical world, that is they may be global, environmental, spatial, personal, handheld, wearable or embedded; they may be personal or social or adapting their status depending on context; they may be made up of any of a number of components coordinated centrally or built as a distributed and decentralised architecture, autonomous or un-affiliated; they may vary on their degree of physical integration as well as their integration with existing information infrastructures; they may show spontaneous behaviour and they may learn to adapt it; they may create an ambient intelligence landscape; and last but not least they may be embedded, pervasive or mobile. Thus, from a computer science perspective many see ubiquitous computing as primarily a systems engineering problem.

Authors are invited to submit original papers that fall into one of the following categories:

• Original and unpublished research work
• Report of innovative computing applications in the arts, sciences, engineering, and business areas
• Report of successful technology transfer to new problem domains
• Report of industrial experience and demos of new innovative systems

The ACM SAC 2006 track on ubiquitous computing applications welcomes paper submissions on all types of ubiquitous computing applications as well as on specialized infrastructures built for the deployment of targeted applications. Papers should place applications within their use context and make a significant contribution in terms of a use case, a novel and appropriate interaction paradigm, an innovative experience design approach and so on, addressing related technical, design, interaction, business, economics or legal aspects and opportunities or constraints accordingly.

The track will aim to:

• Showcase the state of the art of ubiquitous computing applications and trace the state of the research landscape.
• Provide a forum for groups and researchers that implement and evaluate ubiquitous computing application prototypes to present their work.
• Offer the opportunity to researchers working on ubiquitous computing application prototypes to forge collaborations, create constituencies and exchange ideas.
• Solidify user need and requirements and accentuate the role of context in ubiquitous computing applications.
• Identify theoretical barriers and technology limitations to support ubiquitous computing infrastructures.
• Explore how applications create new research directions in ubiquitous infrastructure and technology.
• Promote the concept of research through experimentation with ubiquitous computing applications.
• Develop a set of applications that can be used to benchmark the efficiency and the effectiveness of ubiquitous computing infrastructures.
• Identify best cases and design patterns.
• Identify the social implications of the deployment and of the widespread use of ubiquitous computing applications.

Possible application areas include but are not restricted to:

• Entertainment, infotainment and gaming.
• Tourism and experience recording.
• Ubiquitous commerce including shopping assistants, retail environments and home shopping.
• Smart home infrastructures including home automation, entertainment and commerce.
• Research infrastructures including ubiquitous computing support for laboratory work and remote monitoring and control.
• Ubiquitous cognitive assistance including ubiquitous valet or rememberer systems.
• Ubiquitous computing supported collaborative work.
• Ubiquitous learning in the classroom as well as in informal settings, for example during museum, gallery or exhibition visits.
• Health- and home-care including monitoring and processing of vital signs, and medication administration.
• Environmental control including self-configuring sensor and actuator networked applications.
• Transportation including fleet management applications.

This track will particularly welcome demonstrations of working prototypes of ubiquitous computing applications.

All papers should represent original and previously unpublished works that currently are not under review in any conference or journal. Both basic and applied research papers are welcome. This track will particularly welcome demonstrations of working prototypes of ubiquitous computing applications.

The paper should not be more than 15 pages long using 11 point font and 1 inch margins on all four sides on letter size paper. Papers that fail to comply with length limitations risk rejection. Electronic submission in PDF format is required. Hardcopy and fax submissions will not be accepted. Please use your paper identification number in the "subject" field when you submit the final paper.

The author's(s') name(s) and address(es) must not appear in the body of the submitted paper, and self-references should be in the third person. This is to facilitate a blind review. All submitted papers must include the paper identification number on the front page above the title of the paper. Submissions will be judged on originality, significance, interest, clarity, relevance to the SAC objectives, and correctness. Note that a paper cannot be submitted to more than one ACM SAC 2006 track.

Your paper needs to be submitted via this link no later than September 3, 2005. In case of problems with the system during the submission process, please contact Jeff Allen.

Accepted papers may be shepherded through an editorial review process by a member of the program committee. Based on initial feedback from the program committee, authors of shepherded papers will submit an editorial revision of their paper to their program committee shepherd by November 5, 2005.

Sept 3, 2005: Submission of papers and demonstration proposals (strict)
Oct 15, 2005: Notification of Acceptance/Rejection
Nov 5, 2004: Camera-Ready copies of accepted papers
April 23-27,2006: ACM SAC 2006