Untethered Local Communications:From Wireless Access to Social GlueRenato Lo CignoUniversity of Trento (UNITN)

WONS 2011, Bardonecchia, 27th January 2011

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it 2

Agenda A retrospective on communications

Electrical Human

Short Radio Communications What are they (you know, otherwise you won’t be

here) What they can (should?) become

Foundational Issues Some crazy ideas I don’t know how to tackle

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it 3

Internet/PCS Networks About wide and far and “any”

Because close and here is easy: talk, look, ... Because “any-all” gives the (false) sense of boing

in control Text/Data centric

No feeling, no “group”, ... Digital, deterministic, ...

Network Centric Users are on the border

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it 4

Human Communications

Analog, Physical, ... Fuzzy, informal, local, ...

Animal, Sub-symbolic Consensus building Group based Empathy/Sympathy/Antipathy

Immediate In the meaning of non-mediated

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it 5

Internet/PCS communications

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it 6

A hook to Marco’s “green” talk

where are you?

where are you?

here!here!

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it 7

Human-centric communications

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it 8

Short Range Communications: Now Novel (well nearly ...) technology Today is mostly access Ad-hoc is limited

Military Sensors (cable replacement)

Just a means of getting rid of cables Mobility Commodity

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it 9

Short Range Communications Tomorrow Reverse the logic of networking

Remember the spinning figures?

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it 10

Short Range Communications Tomorrow Augmented human communications

Local direct contacts Group communications

Avoid global networking for local communications More than Ad Hoc Must be a “global” local communication

Provide support for the non-verbal, non-formal communications Trust, Consensus, ...

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it 11

SRC: Toward Social Glue

Help reconstructing “communities” Connect locally, communicate here

Reverse the “google syndrome” Trust your community not (commercial)

recommending systems Reduce the digital divide

Go back to a less “technocratic” language

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it 12

SRC-SG – Foundations 1: From Global to Local The Internet is inherently global (IP,DNS, ...) Cellular are structurally (almost) unable to do

that We need devices and protocols for local

discovery and context understanding Is this Cognitive Networking? Can we borrow something from AdHoc? When comms are local and when are they global?

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it 13

SRC-SG – Foundations 2:Novel Trust Models Now the trust model is roughly

“Hey customer, I know who you are, behave! ” Move to distributed context-based trust We don’t need the same level of trust for

every service What time is it? What is the PIN of your CC?

Group authentication Anonymous/Pseudonymous communications

for some tasks

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it 14

SRC-SG – Foundations 3:Environment Context Understanding where you are Knowing the surrounding ambient

Revolution, now context based services know YOU, not vice versa

Learning the human context Family, Friends Works, Strangers ...

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it 15

SRC-SG – Foundations 4:Body Sensing and Projecting The sub-symbolic part of human

communications How to collect it, how to covey it How far, how close

Do we need this at all? Does it make sense for people not in “human

touch”?

WONS 2011 – Bardonecchia, IT, Jan 26-28, 2011locigno@disi.unitn.it

THE END

Thank you!

Questions? Comments?