Grand Challenges

Inspired by the Grand Challenges that various organizations have issued, I've been taking a look at how 'Ubiquitous Computing' fits into the idea of the Cyberinfostructure.

In particular, the Grand Challenges identified by The British Computer Society struck a chord with me. They combined two of their original GCs (2 & 4) into a single challenge on ubiquitous computing agenda.

Professor Morris Slomon chairs this particular challenge. He has pointed me at a couple of things, including the latest on "Global Ubiquitous Computing: Design and Science" which can be found at UbiNet.

Also, the Computing Research Association issued a report on the "Grand Research Challenges in Information Systems" which has a bit different take than the UK report. Elements of the Ubiquitous Systems can be seen in several of the CRA grand challenges

• Create a Ubiquitous Safety.Net
• Build Systems You Can Count On
  
• Conquer System Complexity

While most of the push for Cyberinfrastructure is around 'bigger is better' the push for ubiquitous computing is in the opposite direction. Smaller and more is the mantra for this, and it means a lot of different problems have to be solved.

I'm especially interested in the implications regarding the data/information, in particular:

• security
• privacy
• provenance
• filtering/overload
• context
• relevance
• storage and archival

Kipp