Abstract :
Summary form only given, as follows. What will be the simplest and yet useful interface? A single click on a button (one bit) is the minimum information to command a device to initiate a service for the owner. This simple interface, however, requires enormous computing and intelligence in the background. The device must recognize the situation, learn preferences and understand the intention of the owner, and plan for its own action. The task is obviously too heavy for a single portable device. Therefore it must utilize the information processing (IP) capabilities embedded in the environment as well as getting multi-modal information from sensors in various kinds. Software agents must cooperate with each other for acquiring and processing information. In the talk I want to present a design for a future vision of ubiquitous IP environment, namely the Cyber Assist project. The main target of the project is the development of IP technologies for situated, or location dependent, support of users. Physical properties such as location will play an essential role in IP. The grounding of symbolic information to the real physical world, or informational integration of digital and physical world, makes IP richer. For example, location-oriented addressing, instead of identity-oriented addressing, supports anonymity of the recipient on one hand and allows location-based services on the other. I believe that the general direction of the vision is shared by many research groups in the world. I want to mention some of them in the talk.
