Date: Wednesday, 16 July 2008, 6:30 PM
Location: Hewlett Packard (see directions),
Pruneridge and Wolfe, Cupertino, Bldg. 48, Oak Room.
Cost: Free and open to all who wish to attend, but membership is
only $10/year.
Topic
Pervasive computing is about making the real world--and everything in it--smarter through the use of small, wireless, battery-powered computers that can be put anywhere or attached to anything. Pervasive applications range from automatically watering your plants when they need water to analyzing millions of containers as they move goods throughout the world. Operating for years without intervention, pervasive applications are making the real world smarter, safer, greener, and more fun. Sentilla has brought pervasive computing into the 21st century through an innovative Java software platform that opens these embedded wireless systems up to millions of developers that were previous off limits. Sentilla's software includes the world's smallest Java platform and the only Java platform running on 8-bit and 16-bit embedded systems -- systems with only 10kB of RAM and 48kB of storage.
This talk contains three main components: and overview of pervasive applications and their promise to solve the world's most pressing problems, the technical innovation required to bring high 21st century programming models (such as Java) to embedded computing, and tips and techniques for building applications in this new domain. Application scenarios include monitoring the flow of people, analyzing energy and water use for conservation, and proactive detection and reporting of potential failures and maintenance conditions, such as on bridges, airplanes, and industrial equipment. To solve the needs of these applications, a system architecture spanning from real world intelligent objects objects through to the Internet is presented, and the common object model that unifies such a wide range of computing platforms. This talk also illustrates the importance of research published almost 30 years ago when systems had similar capabilities to today's embedded systems; and how these established techniques are essential for the next wave of networked embedded systems.
About the Speaker
Joe Polastre, PhD is Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Sentilla Corporation. Dr. Polastre is responsible for defining and implementing the global technology strategy and overseeing the product roadmap. Dr. Polastre's experience with pervasive computing stems from his deep background with wireless sensor networks, having deployed the first-ever autonomous network on Great Duck Island, Maine, in 2002 to monitor the patterns of elusive seabirds. In addition to his practical experience, Dr. Polastre sits on numerous technical boards and commissions and is a tireless evangelist for pervasive computing. He is also the author of seminal work in the wireless sensor industry, including communication abstractions, hardware designs, energy harvesting, deployment experience, and system virtualization. Prior to Sentilla, he held positions in software architecture and engineering at IBM, Intel, and Microsoft. Dr. Polastre holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S in Computer Science from Cornell University.