WirelessMobileComputing

CS4135 - Mobile Devices

Fall 2012
Instructor - Prof. Gurminder Singh

(page last updated: Oct 8, 2012)

Overview

There is a large number of mobile devices, including cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), PDA/cellular phone combinations, pagers, badges and other wearable devices, in use today in a variety of applications. The number and variety of such devices keeps growing at a fast pace as new processing, display, battery and wireless technologies are invented and as new applications for these devices are envisioned. This is a practical, hands-on course that covers the architecture, usability and applications of mobile devices. From an application perspective, this course will discuss mobile devices as tools to support homeland security applications, military applications for capability enhancement, and communications and computing needs of mobile professionals. The study of principles is combined with hands-on laboratory exercises to develop applications on mobile devices.

Every two weeks we will review significant market developments in relevant areas. This will help students appreciate the market relevance of the technology covered in the course and get a better understanding of the state-of-the-art.

The ultimate objective of the course is to show students how they can exploit the capabilities of mobile devices to implement innovative applications to enhance productivity and effectiveness in a variety of domains.

Topics

Device Technologies

Display
Memory
Processor
Battery

Power Management
Usability of Mobile Devices

Hardware UI Elements
Navigation Control
Data Input
Connectivity

Voice Interfaces
Operating Systems for Mobile Devices
Mobile Device Management
Device Independent Apps
Applications

Grading

Students' grades will be awarded based on their performance in:

1 Assignments	10%
Project	45%
2 Exams	40%
Class Participation	5%

Details on assignments and projects will be made available as the course progresses. Class participation will entail being actively engaged in class discussions and presenting interesting insights related to technologies and applications relevant to the course.

Readings and References

The following will be helpful for the course.

Handheld Usability. Scott Weiss, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2002
Pervasive Computing. Jochen Burkhardy, Dr Horst Henn, Stefan Hepper, Klaus Rindtorff, Thomas Schack, Addison Wesley, 2002

Designing the PDA of the Future. Aaron Marcus, Eugene Chen, Interactions, Jan-Feb 2002, 34-44
Uncovering the New Wireless Interaction Paradigm. Heiko Sacher, Gareth Louden, Interactions, Jan-Feb 2002, 17-23
Beyond the Handset: Designing for Wireless Communications Usability. Leysia Palen, Marilyn Salzman, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 9(2), June 2002, 125-151
System Support for Mobile Adaptive Applications. Brian Noble, IEEE Personal Communications, Feb 2002, 44-49
Satchel: Providing Access to Any Document, Any Time, Anywhere. Mik Lamming, Marge Eldridge, Mike Flynn, Chris Jones, David Pendlebury, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interactions, 7(9), Sept 2000, 322-352.
Functionality Needed in Middleware for Future Mobile Computing Platforms. Kimmo Raatikainen, Nokia Research, 2002.
Readings for power management
http://www.semtech.com/pdf/wirelessportable.pdf
http://www.research.ibm.com/arl/projects/papers/DPM_V1.1.pdf

The following journals publish the latest research on topics related to the course.

The following lists provide industry news related to the technologies covered in the course.