liquid: Context-Aware Distributed Queries
Information required by a context-aware application may be partitioned by any number of physical, organizational, or privacy boundaries, suggesting the need for data access mechanisms that avoid explicitly managing the complex storage layout and access policies of the underlying data. To address this need, we have developed liquid, a prototype query service that supports distributed, continuous query processing of context data. more >> (PDF)

Is context-aware computing taking control away from the user? Three levels of interactivity examined
We investigate users' preferences for three levels of interactivity in context-aware applications: personalization, passive context-awareness and active context-awareness. Despite users feeling a greater loss of control when using context-aware applications, they preferred them. more >> (PDF)

Towards a Deconstruction of the Privacy Space
When designing for or discussing privacy, it is critical to identify the conditions that create a system’s or phenomenon’s privacy implications. We present a set of interdependent dimensions that, when applied to the analysis of a privacy-related system or phenomenon, can expose the factors that determine the role of privacy therein. This can help focus the scope of discourse and the design of privacy in the HCI and ubiquitous computing communities. more >> (PDF)

Palimpsests on Public View: Annotating Community Content with Personal Devices
This demonstration introduces UbiComp attendees to a system for content annotation and open-air, social blogging on interactive, publicly situated, digital poster boards using public and personal devices. more >> (PDF)

SiteView: Tangibly Programming Active Environments with Predictive Visualization
Active environments - those with sensing and actuation capabilities - are often difficult for end users to control. SiteView allows users to tangibly create automation rules and visualize their future effects. more >> (PDF)

ContextMap: Modeling Scenes of the Real World for Context-Aware Computing
We present a scenegraph-based schema, the ContextMap, to model context information. Locations with hierarchical relations are the skeleton of the ContextMap where nodes of people, objects and activities can be attached. Context information can be collected by traversing the ContextMap. more >> (PDF)

Healthy Cities Ambient Displays
We are building public ambient displays that make city health more visible, addressing the lack of publicly-available information about city health. Through interviews and surveys of Berkeley residents, we have found that city health includes a wide variety of economic, environmental, and social indicators. more >> (PDF)

Dimensions of Identity in Open Educational Settings
From deployments of Livenotes, a Tablet-based application for collaborative note-taking in open educational settings, we observe that communication breakdowns, potentially affecting learning, arise from imperfect knowledge about other users' identities. This leads us to argue that the concept of identity in ubicomp learning environments needs to be expanded to include digital, social, and physical features. more >> (PDF)