a) Briefly describe the relationship between distributed computing, mobile computing and pervasive computing.
b) Suppose the following scenario, which demonstrate the possibilities of Aura, a pervasive computing system.
Jane is at Gate 23 in the Pittsburgh airport, waiting for her connecting flight. She has edited many large documents, and would like to use her wireless connection to e-mail them. Unfortunately, bandwidth is miserable due to many passengers at Gates 22 and 23 are surfing the Web.
Aura, the pervasive computing system, observes that at the current bandwidth Jane won't be able to finish sending her documents before her flight departs. Consulting the airport's network weather service and flight schedule service, Aura discovers that wireless bandwidth is excellent at Gate 15, and that there are no departing or arriving flights at nearby gates for half an hour. A dialog box pops up on Jane's screen suggesting that she go to Gate 15, which is only three minutes away. It also asks her to prioritize her e-mail, so that the most critical messages are transmitted first. Jane accepts Aura's advice and walks to Gate 15. She watches CNN on the TV there until Aura informs her that it is close to being done with her messages, and that she can start walking back. The last message is transmitted during her walk, and she is back at Gate 23 in time for her boarding call.
i. Besides the ability to deal with mobility, pervasive computing systems have to cater for the four requirements listed below. Provide a brief explanation for each and demonstrate their how Aura deals with each.
i. Effective user of Smart Spaces
ii. Invisibility
iii. Localised scalability
iv. Masking uneven conditions
ii. Describe how this scenario demonstrates a proactive system.
iii. Combination of knowledge from different systems is also an important ingredient for pervasive systems. Describe how this is being achieved in the scenario.
iv. This scenario is still not reality today. What are the major issues which inhibits its realisation?