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 Ubiquitous Computing
Fundamentals

© 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

93606_Book.indb 1 8/26/09 1:38:19 PM

Ubiquitous Computing
Fundamentals

Edited by
John Krumm
Microsoft Corporation
Redmond, Washington, U.S.A.

© 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

 Chapman & Hall/CRC
Taylor & Francis Group
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Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

© 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Chapman & Hall/CRC is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

No claim to original U.S. Government works

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ubiquitous Computing Fundamentals / edited by John Krumm.

p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4200-9360-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Ubiquitous computing. I. Krumm, John.

QA76.5915.U258 2010
004--dc22 2009026632

Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at

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and the CRC Press Web site at

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© 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

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 Table of Contents

Foreword, vii
Introduction, ix
Contributors, xiii

CHAPTER 1 � An Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing 1

ROY WANT

CHAPTER 2 � Ubiquitous Computing Systems 37

JAKOB BARDRAM AND ADRIAN FRIDAY

CHAPTER 3 � Privacy in Ubiquitous Computing 95

MARc LANGHEINRIcH

CHAPTER 4 � Ubiquitous Computing Field Studies 161

A. J. BERNHEIM BRUSH

CHAPTER 5 � Ethnography in Ubiquitous Computing 203

AlEX S. TAYlOR

CHAPTER 6 � From GUI to UUI: Interfaces for Ubiquitous

Computing 237
AARON QUIGlEY

CHAPTER 7 � Location in Ubiquitous Computing 285

AlEXANDER VARSHAvSKY AND SHwETAK PATEl

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 vi  �   Table of Contents

CHAPTER 8 � Context-Aware Computing 321

ANIND K. DEY

CHAPTER 9 � Processing Sequential Sensor Data 353

JOHN KRUMM

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 Foreword

It has been nearly two decades since the term ubiquitous computing
burst into our research vernacular. One of the strengths, and one of the
challenges, of “ubicomp” is that it is hard to pin down exactly what the
intellectual core is. From the very beginning, ubicomp researchers have
investigated both bleeding edge technology challenges as well as human-
centered opportunities. There are other intellectual mergers of interest as
well, including the bridge between the physical and the digital worlds and
the (re-) merging of the academic communities of hardware and software.
But this very diversity of intellectual themes presents two challenges
to our community, both of which motivate the need for a book like this
one. First of all, for established researchers, we have to educate ourselves
on the language and methods of disciplines different from the ones we
have practiced for many years. Why? Because if we are to advance as an
intellectual community, then we all need to embrace the inherent diver-
sity in our thoughts and skills. While it is not strictly necessary that we
become expert in all of the relevant subdisciplines of ubicomp represented
in this book, it is necessary that we appreciate all the perspectives and that
we strive to make our own work more relevant and accessible to those
many perspectives.
Second, and more importantly, we have to provide a foundation for
future generations. I deeply believe that any interesting problem to explore
in our everyday lives requires expertise from many disciplines and per-
spectives. Consequently, we have to train new researchers so that they will
be able to stand on the results of the past and direct us as a community to
go beyond where we are today. In short, our students must be empowered
to be better than we are, or we face extinction as a relevant intellectual
community.
Under the skillful guidance of John Krumm, the authors of these chap-
ters have assembled a collection of well-written, tutorial style chapters on

vii

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 viii  �   Foreword

topics that have become core to research advances in ubiquitous comput-

ing over the past two decades. The result is a must-read text that provides
an historical lens to see how ubicomp has matured into a multidisciplinary
endeavor. It will be an essential reference to researchers and those who
want to learn more about this evolving field.

Professor Gregory D. Abowd, PhD

College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.

© 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

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 Introduction

This book is an overview of the fascinating field of ubiquitous comput-

ing. Since this field is rapidly progressing, the book is aimed at people
who want to explore it as researchers or track its evolution. Intended for
advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals interested
in ubiquitous computing research, the book covers the major fundamen-
tals and research in the key areas that shape the field. Each chapter is a
tutorial that provides readers with an introduction to an important subset
of ubiquitous computing and also contains many valuable references to
relevant research papers.
The field of ubiquitous computing is simultaneously young and broad.
Research papers in the field commonly reference Mark Weiser, who
famously coined the term ubiquitous computing in his Scientific American
article in 1991. This is considered the start of the research area, and it has
grown to encompass a broad array of technologies since then. Although
the field is broad, there are well-established conferences and researchers
devoted to it.
We chose 11 of the most prominent ubiquitous computing research
devotees to contribute chapters to this book in their area of expertise.
Given the field’s breadth, it would be difficult to find one person who can
expertly cover it all. Some of the chapter authors teach ubiquitous com-
puting at universities. All of them are intimately involved in research in
their specialty. Working in the area means they have the experience to not
only describe the fundamental research issues, but to also explain practi-
cal ways to accomplish research and publish papers in the field.
Ubiquitous computing research can be categorized into three distinct
areas where the research is focused: systems, experience, and sensors. The

ix

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 x  �   Introduction

chapters of this book are similarly organized and categorized. The three
categories and their supporting chapters are

Systems—These chapters focus on how to build the software support for

deploying ubiquitous computing applications.
“Ubiquitous Computing Systems” (Chapter 2) discusses the impor-
tant issues to consider when building the infrastructure to sup-
port ubiquitous computing applications.
“Privacy in Ubiquitous Computing” (Chapter 3) explains how to
maintain privacy in systems that inherently need to connect with
personal devices and information.

Experience—These chapters highlight the critical points where ubiqui-

tous computing technologies touch people.
“Ubiquitous Computing Field Studies” (Chapter 4) shows how to
evaluate ubiquitous computing applications in the field.
“Ethnography in Ubiquitous Computing” (Chapter 5) details how
to observe people and consider how they might use ubiquitous
computing technology.
“From GUI to UUI: Interfaces for Ubiquitous Computing” (Chapter 6)
focuses on moving from the graphical to the ubiquitous computing
user interface.

Sensors—These chapters show how systems sense location and analyze

and determine context.
“Location in Ubiquitous Computing” (Chapter 7) illustrates how to
measure a person’s location, one of the most important inputs for
ubiquitous computing applications.
“Context-Aware Computing” (Chapter 8) explains the use of context
to allow ubiquitous computing applications to deliver the right
services at the right time.
“Processing Sequential Sensor Data” (Chapter 9) details how to effec-
tively process sensor data for location and context.

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 Introduction  �   xi

In addition to these specific research areas, the book begins with a

chapter called “An Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing,” which dis-
cusses the history of the field in terms of its major research projects.
Although the chapters cover interrelated topics, they can be covered in
any order by a teacher or reader.
We hope you will find this book to be a useful overview of and a practi-
cal tutorial on the young and evolving field of ubiquitous computing.

John Krumm

© 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

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 Contributors

Jakob E. Bardram, PhD Shwetak Patel, PhD

IT University of Copenhagen Computer Science and
Copenhagen, Denmark Engineering
University of Washington
A.J. Bernheim Brush, PhD Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
Microsoft Research
Redmond, Washington, U.S.A. Aaron Quigley, PhD
Human Interface Technology
Anind K. Dey, PhD Laboratory Australia
HCI Institute University of Tasmania
Carnegie Mellon University Tasmania, Australia
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Alex S. Taylor, PhD
Adrian Friday, PhD Microsoft Research
Computing Department Cambridge, United Kingdom
Lancaster University
Lancaster, United Kingdom Alexander Varshavsky, PhD
AT&T Labs
John Krumm, PhD Florham Park, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Microsoft Research
Redmond, Washington, U.S.A. Roy Want, PhD
Intel Corporation
Marc Langheinrich, PhD Santa Clara, California, U.S.A.
Faculty of Informatics
University of Lugano (USI)
Lugano, Switzerland

xiii

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 CHAPTER 1

An Introduction to
Ubiquitous Computing
Roy Want

CONteNts
1.1 Founding Contributions to Ubiquitous Computing 3
1.1.1 Xerox PARC 3
1.1.2 Tabs, Pads, and Liveboards 6
1.1.3 Context Awareness 10
1.1.4 IBM Research: Pervasive Computing versus Ubiquitous
Computing 11
1.1.5 University of Tokyo: T-Engine and the ITRON
Operating System 12
1.1.6 Hewlett Packard: Cooltown 13
1.2 Ubiquitous Computing in U.S. Universities 15
1.2.1 UC Berkeley: InfoPad 15
1.2.2 MIT Media Laboratory: Wearable Computing 16
1.2.3 Georgia Tech: Living Laboratories 18
1.3 Ubiquitous Computing in European Laboratories
and Universities 20
1.3.1 Olivetti Research: Active Badges 20
1.3.2 Karlsruhe: Cups and Smart-Its 23
1.3.3 Lancaster University: Guide 25
1.4 Modern Directions in Ubiquitous Computing 26
1.4.1 Microsoft Research 26
1.4.2 Intel Research 27

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 2  �   Roy Want

1.5 The Research Community Embraces Ubiquitous Computing 28

1.6 The Future of Ubiquitous Computing 31
References 33

Ubiquitous computing, or ubicomp, is the term given to the third era of

modern computing. The first era was defined by the mainframe computer,
a single large time-shared computer owned by an organization and used
by many people at the same time. Second, came the era of the PC, a per-
sonal computer primarily owned and used by one person, and dedicated
to them. The third era, ubiquitous computing, representative of the pres-
ent time, is characterized by the explosion of small networked portable
computer products in the form of smart phones, personal digital assis-
tants (PDAs), and embedded computers built into many of the devices
we own—resulting in a world in which each person owns and uses many
computers. Each era has resulted in progressively larger numbers of com-
puters becoming integrated into everyday life (Figure 1.1).
Although the general trends in computing are clear, the predictions,
research, and philosophy behind the technology that make ubiquitous
computing a reality have taken many forms, all of which have been shaped
by the organizations that cultivated them. The early informative research
in this area began in the late 1980s and was pioneered by Xerox Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC), IBM Research, Tokyo University, University of
California (UC) Berkeley, Olivetti Research, HP Labs, Georgia Institute
of Technology (Georgia Tech), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) Media Laboratory. Many commercial entities also began forays into
ubiquitous computing during the 1990s, exploring the business potential
for ubiquitous services, and novel mobile devices such as pen-based com-
puters. At this time, we also saw the introduction of the Apple Newton,

Mainframe (one computer, many people)

PC (one person, one computer)
Ubiquitous computing (one person,
many computers)
Devices

Time

FIGURE 1.1 Graph conceptually portraying three eras of modern computing.

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 An Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing  �   3

and the term PDA was coined. Other product examples included the EO
pad, using GO Pen software, and later the Palm Pilot (with Graffiti) and
the Sharp Zaurus; Fujitsu also developed a series of tablet and palm-based
devices particularly targeted at vertical markets. Later still, MP3 players
from Archos and Apple also played into this market.
Today, demonstrating the most convincing evidence of the value
of ubiquitous computing, the cell phone, or more precisely the “smart
phone,” takes center stage crossing a threshold of processor performance,
memory/disk capacity, and connectivity both cellular and local, making it
the most widely adopted and ubiquitous computer there has ever been. In
the remaining sections, we follow the path of research that has defined ubiq-
uitous computing since its beginning, and discuss the various approaches
and some of the philosophies that have grown up around the work.

1.1 FOuNdiNg CONtriButiONs
tO UBiQuitOus COMputiNg
1.1.1 Xerox PARC
The original term ubiquitous computing was coined by Mark Weiser in
1988 at Xerox PARC, while serving as the director of the Computer Science
Laboratory (CSL), one of five laboratories at the renowned research cen-
ter (Figure 1.2). He envisioned a future in which computing technologies

FIGURE 1.2 Xerox PARC—Computer Science Laboratory 1991: Mark Weiser

using a Liveboard with a ParcPad visible in the foreground. (Photo courtesy of
PARC, Inc., http://www.parc.com)

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 4  �   Roy Want

became embedded in everyday artifacts, were used to support daily activi-

ties, and were equally applicable to our work, managing our homes, and
for play. A more complete description of this vision is described on a
Web site maintained by PARC summarizing Weiser’s work and ideas and
can be found at www.ubicomp.com/weiser. A concise summary of ubiqui-
tous computing, or ubicomp, as it was originally referred to by researchers
at PARC, can also be found in his 1991 Scientific American article (Weiser,
1991), which contains his famous quote:
The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They
weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are
indistinguishable from it.
—Mark Weiser

The essence of Weiser’s vision is that mobile and embedded processors can
communicate with each other and the surrounding infrastructure, seam-
lessly coordinating their operation to provide support for a wide variety of
everyday work practices. A consequence of this approach is that each device
needs to limit the range of its communication to enable valuable wireless
bandwidth reuse. As a result, he introduced the notion of bits-per-second
per-cubic-meter to the ubicomp vision (Weiser, 1993a), and inspired many
researchers to explore techniques for spatial reuse of the radio spectrum. In
the early 1990s, there were no short-range wireless standards that could pro-
vide this capability, but today we have Bluetooth, Near Field Communication
(NFC), IrDA, Zigbee, and WiFi (soon WiFi PAN), which have enabled wide
deployment of devices that take advantage of local ad hoc communication,
and can be used to build the ubicomp vision.
Going beyond technology per se, Weiser saw ubicomp as an opportu-
nity to improve on the style of computing that has been imposed on users
since the early days of the mainframe also carrying over to PCs—namely,
sitting in a chair, staring at a screen, typing on a keyboard, and making
selections with a mouse. Through this style of interaction, traditional
computers consume much of our attention and divorce us from what is
happening all around us, resulting in a somewhat solitary all-consuming
experience. Weiser believed that in a ubicomp world, computation could
be integrated with common objects that you might already be using for
everyday work practices, rather than forcing computation to be a separate
activity. If the integration is done well, you may not even notice that any
computers were involved in your work. Weiser sometimes also referred to

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 An Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing  �   5

this as invisible computing and wrote a number of articles about his phi-
losophy (Weiser, 1993b).
To illustrate the concept of invisible technology more effectively, consider
an analogy based on the familiar printed page. The technology behind print-
ing is the deposition of ink on thin sheets of paper. For optimal results the
design of the ink and paper must be well thought out. For example, the ink
must stain the surface of the paper to provide a high contrast black against
the white background, it must be durable in use, and not wick into the paper
even if wet. However, when we read a printed page, we rarely notice the
underlying ink and paper and ink technologies; we read the pages and com-
prehend the ideas; but it is not necessary to focus on the technology, the
characteristics of the ink, or the manufacturing process of the paper to be
able to use it. You might say that printing technology “gets out of the way”
of the user, allowing the higher-level goal of reading a story, or acquiring
knowledge; on the other hand, traditional PCs rarely do this. Instead, they
usually require us to continuously tinker with the system, maintaining it and
configuring it to complete a task. In summary, when designing and using
ubicomp technologies, we may have the opportunity to more closely parallel
the higher-level experience we have when reading the printed word.
Another term Weiser used to describe ubiquitous computing was
“The coming age of calm technology” (Weiser and Seely-Brown, 1997).
Although there is no simple formula to convert a PC application into a
calm embedded computing experience, ubiquitous computing takes the
opposite philosophy to the PC, which tries to virtualize our world (e.g.,
the familiar PC desktop and icons representing documents, printers, and
trash can). Instead, ubicomp pushes the computerized versions of these
technologies back into the physical world (Weiser, 1994). For example,
rather than reading documents on a PC screen in a graphic made to look
like a printed page, the objective would be to create a dedicated document
reader with an embedded processor that you can hold and use just like
a book. This is an old idea from PARC originally conceived by Alan Kay
with his Dynabook project, but was later updated by Weiser’s vision, mak-
ing it highly connected and coordinating wirelessly with the surrounding
systems. From a user’s perspective, the experience of using such a device
is simplified relative to a PC because it has a dedicated function (a design
point sometimes referred to as an information appliance); it does not need
the complex arrangement of nested menus and control functions required
by a generalized computing platform. Although this concept has been
tested several times in the marketplace, for example, Rocketbook and

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 6  �   Roy Want

Softbook, which were not commercially successful, the idea is still being
revisited in the marketplace today with Sony’s e-reader and Amazon’s
Kindle. Similar to the evolution of the PDA, each generation learns from
the failures of the previous generation, and at the same time technology
improves, allowing an e-book to more closely match the affordances of the
real book it is trying to replace.

1.1.2 Tabs, Pads, and Liveboards

Under Weiser’s leadership, CSL set out to design and build a ubiquitous
computing environment within the confines of the research center. PARC
has long had a philosophy of “Build what you use, and use what you build”
and the ubicomp research theme continued that tradition.
However, given the resource constraints of research, it was necessary to
limit the scope of the ubicomp exploration to a manageable set of projects.
These were selected by asking the question, “What is the minimum set of
usable devices that can be built in a laboratory but still provide a sandbox
rich enough to explore ubicomp and its defining characteristics?” Toward
this goal, a guiding philosophy was inspired by the traditional units of
length. The units inch, foot, and yard were born out of everyday needs and
had a different origin than the more scientifically rationalized metric sys-
tem with the millimeter, centimeter, and meter.
Consider how the traditional units came about: they most likely rep-
resent significantly different uses from a human perspective. Yard-scale
measurements are typically used to measure objects around us that are
large and immovable. Foot-sized objects can be held in your hands and
carried, but are large enough that they are not likely to be carried with us
at all times. However, inch-scale objects can fit in a pocket and be forgotten
about while carrying out other unrelated daily activities. In other words,
these three measurements represent three very different scales of human
interaction, and define scale transitions for how we interact with the world
around us. If ubiquitous computing systems were built to mimic everyday
capabilities that occur at these three scales, any observation of such a sys-
tem would probably have generic characteristics that would hold true for a
much larger set of devices, each falling into one of these categories.
PARC thus embarked on the design of three devices: ParcTab, or Tab,
an inch-scale computer that represented a pocket book or wallet (Want
et al., 1995); the ParcPad, or Pad, a foot-scale device, serving the role of a
pen-based notebook or e-book reader; and Liveboard, a yard-scale device
that provides the functionality of a whiteboard.

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 An Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing  �   7

(a)

(b)

FIGURE 1.3 (a) Xerox ParcTab a palm (inch-scale) computer communicating

using diffuse infrared (IR) signalling; (b) an infrared transceiver basestation
installed in the ceiling of each room comprising the ubicomp environment.
Note the ring of IR emitters at the edge of the circular board, and four IR
detectors at the center pointing in four cardinal compass directions. (Photos
courtesy of PARC, Inc., http://www.parc.com)

Tabs communicated wirelessly with a ceiling-mounted basestation

using 10 kbps diffuse infrared signaling (Figure 1.3). Each room was typi-
cally fitted with one basestation providing an infrared wired microcellular
communication network. Each basestation also communicated through
a wired serial connection to a nearby workstation attached in turn to
the building’s Ethernet, thus providing a connection to distributed ser-
vices available on the network. ParcTabs were effectively dumb terminals

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 8  �   Roy Want

generating pen/key events in response to user actions, and these were sent
to remote applications running on servers attached to the network, result-
ing in application state changes that sent back screen updates to the Tab
displays.
ParcPads employed a similar design approach using a low-bandwidth
X-protocol across a radio link, communicating with a basestation through a
proprietary short-range near-field radio (Katarjiev et al., 1993) (Figure 1.4).
The radio basestation was also mounted in the ceiling of each office or labo-
ratory, and had a 3–4 m range, similar to the infrared system but with 25×
more bandwidth at 250 kbps. The reason infrared was used on the Tabs

(a)

(b)

FIGURE 1.4 (a) The ParcPad, a notebook-sized (foot scale) tablet computer;
(b) the near-field communication basestation mounted on the ceiling of an
office at PARC. (Photos courtesy of PARC, Inc., http://www.parc.com)

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 An Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing  �   9

versus the Pads was that it could be operated at much lower power, and was
more suited to the small battery used by the inch-scale ParcTab device.
Liveboards were designed around standard computer workstations,
but with much larger pen-based displays, and pen-based input. At PARC,
several of these were deployed at fixed locations around the building and
linked by a wired network. The display was implemented using a back-
projected LCD panel and a 45° mirror to realize the image on a 67-inch
frosted display panel. For writing and selection Liveboard employed an
infrared pen that was tracked across its screen using a four-quadrant
infrared sensor mounted in the optical path behind the screen. The out-
put of the optical sensor was fed through a calibration table resulting in a
representative screen coordinate. The primary pen-based interaction soft-
ware for Liveboard was called Tivoli, also developed at PARC, and allowed
many unique pen-centric operations for the drawing and manipulation of
graphical freeform objects (Elrod et al., 1992).
Although the objective for designing Tabs, Pads, and Liveboards was
to replace equivalent objects in the workplace by offering similar physi-
cal affordances, an equally important goal was to enhance their capabili-
ties relative to the original technology, and thus make a compelling value
proposition for the user. For example, a conventional whiteboard allows a
teacher to write notes about a lesson which can be captured while interact-
ing with the class. However, Liveboard provides this as a baseline capabil-
ity, but adds the option of indexing the pen-based markup with contextual
events to make future search and retrieval easier (Figure 1.5). The annota-
tions and graphics drawn on the board could also be played back using an
interactive timeline to support a discussion that revisited earlier topics.
At the foot scale, a book is just a single book with no interactive capa-
bility, but ParcPad could be potential thousands of books delivered across
the network (or recall them from its local disk). It could also support elec-
tronic markup through its pen interface, and thus allow for hyperlinked
text, word definition look-up, and cross-referencing with other material
(all common today through Web interfaces, but not in the early 1990s).
Last, the ParcTab (replacing the pocket planner), served as a simple
Personal Information Manager, but using its infrared network connection
ParcTab also supported one of the first wireless pocket email readers. It
could also edit documents stored in the network; serves as a remote con-
troller for a room’s heating and air-conditioning system; and play games.
Because the ParcTab was easily carried, it could also serve as a location
beacon, and the system could keep track of the Tabs as they moved around.

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 10  �   Roy Want

FIGURE 1.5 A commercial version of the Liveboard, sold by Liveworks in the

mid-1990s, which evolved out of the original wooden laboratory prototype
developed at PARC (see Figure 1.2). (Photo courtesy of PARC, Inc., http://
www.parc.com)

This led to the notion of context aware applications (Schilit et al., 1994),
which has become a central research theme in many other ubiquitous
computing programs today.

1.1.3 Context Awareness
Context awareness (see Chapter 8) allows applications to comprehend the
environment in which they are being used, and adapt their operation to
provide the best possible user experience. A user or device context is difficult
to model because it has many dimensions, such as location, the identity
of devices close by, who else is present, the time, and environmental fac-
tors such as sound, motion, temperature, orientation, and other physical
variables, many of which can be measured through on-platform sensors.
Context awareness can also span multiple levels of system architecture.
Operating locally at the device level it can take advantage of on-board
sensors. For example, inverting a ParcTab detected by an on-board tilt
sensor would invert its screen to maintain the orientation of the display.
At a higher-system level, applications could use context to modify their
behavior. For example, the ParcTab used an application called a Proximity
Browser, which provided a user with the option of viewing files that had

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 An Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing  �   11

been accessed at its current location on a previous occasion. The objective

was to take advantage of the cache principle: files that had been used at a
location in the past were likely to be useful again.
This summary represents the focus of ubicomp at PARC between 1988
and 1996 when these projects were completed. However it has taken ~15
years for the underlying technologies to mature, communication stan-
dards to be ratified, and for many of the models to gain traction in the
marketplace. This is the nature of ubiquitous computing. It is very sensitive
to the affordances of the devices that technologists are trying to replace
and, as technologies advance, whether it be processor performance per
watt, storage capacity, network bandwidth, display resolution, device size,
and weight. Each year more possibilities for the mainstream application of
ubiquitous computing open up.

1.1.4 IBM Research: Pervasive Computing

versus Ubiquitous Computing
In the mid-1990s, IBM began a research direction it called pervasive com-
puting (IBM Mobile and Pervasive Computing), which had many simi-
larities to the goals of ubiquitous computing. In fact, many texts today
describe pervasive and ubiquitous as the same thing. Although the notion
of being freed from the desktop computer and building on the opportuni-
ties opened up by connected mobile and embedded computers is a theme
common to both, in 1991 the connection with invisible and calm technolo-
gies was a uniquely Xerox PARC perspective. However more than 10 years
later, any unique position described by either party has been slowly inte-
grated into the shared vision and by the mid-2000s any publications that
set out to describe this topic presented fundamentally the same position.
IBM, to its credit, was one of the first companies to investigate the busi-
ness opportunity around pervasive systems, and created a business unit
dedicated to the task.
One of the first commercial deployments of a pervasive computing sys-
tem was born from a collaboration between IBM Zurich and Swissair in
1999 (IBM Swissair), enabling passengers to check-in using Web-enabled
(WAP) cell phones (Figure 1.6). Once the passengers had accessed the ser-
vice, the phone also served as a boarding pass, showing gate seat and flight
departure information, and identifying the traveler as having valid fight
credentials. Although this was one of the most publicized projects, IBM
also applied these technologies to other service opportunities in banking
and financial services, gaining early experience in this area.

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 12  �   Roy Want

FIGURE 1.6 IBM provided Web-based services for Swissair using WAP on a
cell phone to create an electronic boarding pass. (Courtesy of IBM Corp.)

Ubiquitous computing system-level solutions tend to be cross-

discipline, and involve the integration of many disparate technologies
to meet the original design goals. One of the key enablers for pervasive
solutions has been the development of wireless/mobile platforms running
standard operating systems that are already widely deployed in the form
of smart phones. Today, this has enabled the use of generalized software
environments, such as Web Sphere and the J9 Virtual Machine, to name
two of their well-known software projects. The strengths of IBM’s system
integration have played well together to take advantage of a growing com-
mercial service opportunity around pervasive systems.

1.1.5 University of Tokyo: T-Engine and the ITRON Operating System

On the other side of the Pacific Ocean in the late 1980s, researchers in
Japan also realized the time had come for a new computing paradigm
based around embedded systems. Prof. Ken Sakamura from Tokyo
University, a famous computing architect even before his interest in ubiq-
uitous computing, created the TRON research program. He developed
a series of embedded computing platforms called T-Engines that were
designed to be embedded in devices ranging in size from mobile electron-
ics to home appliances and smart sensors (Figure 1.7). As with the other
ubiquitous computing programs described in this chapter, the design of a
suitable software framework to support the development of applications
was equally as important as the design of novel hardware. Sakamura devel-
oped ITRON, an embedded real-time operating system that was portable

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 An Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing  �   13

FIGURE 1.7 Several examples of T-Engines designed to support embed-

ded computation at various scales of devices from information appli-
ances to sensors. (From Krikke, J., IEEE Pervasive Computing 4(2), 2005.
With permission.)

across the various scales of T-Engine, and also able to run on a number of
commercial platforms (Krikke, 2005).
ITRON became very popular because it was an embedded solution that
unified the development of software between various computer vendors in
Japan, and what had been a very fragmented approach to building embed-
ded systems began to coalesce around one design solution. The license
for ITRON was also attractive to businesses because although it was open
source, allowing development, improvement, and software additions,
any changes did not need to be integrated back into the source tree, and
thus given away to competitors. Instead, each company could keep these
changes as a differentiator for their product. Although these advantages
served the community, it also led to incompatibilities in some cases, which
limited the ability to share and run application code. Nonetheless, ITRON
has been extremely successful in this market, and has supported a high
degree of innovation in mobile and embedded products, all of which teach
us lessons about the development of mainstream ubiquitous computing
applications.

1.1.6 Hewlett Packard: Cooltown

The Cooltown project (Kindberg et al., 2002) popularized the notion of
linking real-world objects with Web content. The key observation was
that every object could have a Web page capable of describing it, such as
its name, ownership, origin, and associated network services, etc. This

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 14  �   Roy Want

technique has clear value in a corporate setting, providing simple ways to

configure and interact with networked systems. For complex devices such
as printers and routers, a Web server can be embedded into the device,
and accessed through a network connection (wired or wireless). However,
there is also an opportunity to provide Web presence for simple, non-
electronic, and unsophisticated objects by attaching electronic tags that
encode a unique ID. When used in conjunction with a database that maps
these unique IDs with information, the combination becomes a power-
ful tool; this is similar in concept to the “Bridging Physical and Virtual
Worlds” project at Xerox PARC in 1998 (Want et al., 1999). In Cooltown,
the tags were implemented with barcodes or IR beacons, and could con-
tain either the full textual URL or a unique number that could be mapped
to the URL in order to access the corresponding server.
Although well suited to a corporate environment in which the effi-
cient coordination and tracking of equipment are important, it can also
be generalized to bring advantages to almost any everyday situation by
tagging people, places, and things. A system that has access to the iden-
tity of all the people and objects in a particular place also has access to
the defining context, and can make inferences about the activities taking
place. Cooltown created a distributed system to represent people, places,
and things in the system, and constructed various experimental envi-
ronments (Figure 1.8) to understand how they could be used to support

FIGURE 1.8 A Cooltown environment at HP Labs, Palo Alto, CA, in which all
objects have a Web presence. (Photo courtesy of Hewlett-Packard Corp.)

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Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
She had on a large cloak, the cape of which was turned up so as to
form a hood, and this was dripping with wet; great drops of rain were
on her face too. I pushed my stool, the only seat in my hut, towards
her, and strove to ask what had brought her to such a spot on such a
night; but I could get out no intelligible words. She had closed the
door after her, and in her very manner of doing so, there was
something which suggested fear and danger, so that I caught my
breath in sympathetic alarm.
‘You are Philip Waltress, are you not?’ she said.
I had never heard her speak before, and either I was still under the
influence of my old enchantment, or she really had the most
melodious, most thrilling voice in the world; assuredly I thought so.
Of course I replied in the affirmative.
‘We—I have heard you spoken of,’ she continued; ‘and always
favourably. I am sure you may be trusted; I am sure you will be
faithful.’
‘If I can serve you in any manner, Miss Cleabyrn,’ I managed to say,
‘I will be faithful to any promise I may give—faithful to death.’ This
was a rather strong speech, but I could not help it. As I made it, I felt
that she knew right well, without being led by any report or mention
of me—even if she had heard anything of the sort—why I might be
trusted.
She smiled as I said this. I knew how fascinating was her smile, but I
had never seen it with such sadness in it; it was a thousand times
more enthralling than before. ‘I will confide in you,’ she went on. ‘I
will tell you why I am here in such a tempest; to do this, will be to
confide in you most fully.—I will not sit down’—this was called forth
by another offer of the only seat already mentioned—‘I will stand
here’—she was standing in an angle behind the door, much
screened by my desk and some books which were heaped upon it
—‘then no chance or prying passer-by can see me.’
‘None will pass here for some time, Miss Cleabyrn,’ I said; ‘on such a
night as this, on any night, indeed, the place is deserted; but take the
precaution, if it will give you a feeling of greater safety.’
She did so; and then proceeded, firmly and collectedly—I was
enabled afterwards to judge how much the effort cost her—to tell me
what had brought her to my station. ‘You have heard of Captain
Laurenston?’ she began.
I signified that I had done so.
‘You know that he is pursued by the police; and you know, I have no
doubt, that he is the gentleman who was here in the early part of the
summer?—I thought so. He is in this neighbourhood; is not far from
here. He dares not enter our house at Elm Knoll, as that is not only
under special watch, but we have reason to think that one or more of
our servants are bought over, and would act as spies and informers.
He cannot get away without assistance; and you, he thinks, are the
only man he can trust.’
‘I am!’ I exclaimed. ‘Why, what can I do?’
‘Perhaps nothing; perhaps everything,’ replied Miss Cleabyrn. ‘He
has been seen and recognised here, and every hour makes it more
dangerous for him to linger. He knows he can trust you. I am sure of
it too,’ she added, after a moment’s hesitation; ‘your very look
justifies me in saying so much.’
Ah! she knew what my poor stupid looks had revealed, months
before, and speculated rightly that I would have been taken out and
shot dead on the line, rather than have betrayed her slightest
confidence.
I told her that I would do anything to assist her, and the captain too.
‘In what way,’ I continued, ‘do you——?’
‘You must get him away in one of the carriages,’ she interrupted
—‘some carriage which leaves here; for if he ventures to the station,
he will certainly be arrested. You can, for the present, conceal him in
your cottage, where, as I know, nobody lives but your mother and
yourself. We leave all to you. He will come here to-morrow night. The
rest is in your hands.—These are all I can give you now,’ she
continued. ‘What ready money we can command, he will want; but in
a short time you shall be properly rewarded.’ As she spoke, I saw
her hands were busy under her cloak; and in the next instant she laid
on the desk before me a handsome gold watch and chain.
‘Miss Cleabyrn!’ I gasped at last; ‘you do not think—do not suppose
for a moment that I want—would take from you anything to buy my
aid! I am only too willing to give it. I shall be proud’——
‘They are yours!’ she interrupted. ‘Watch for the captain to-morrow
night.—Do not follow me.—No; keep them! All we can do will be but
trifling to show our undying gratitude, if you aid us now.’ She opened
the door as she said this, and in a moment was lost in the darkness
of the night, leaving me standing with the watch and chain in my
hand.
 MY DETECTIVE EXPERIENCES.
Novel-readers are well acquainted with the modern detective. He
is almost as important a personage as the rich nabob, who was so
lavishly utilised by our progenitors in cutting the Gordian knot of
difficulties in their contemporary works of fiction. If ‘the good man
struggling with the storms of Fate’ required instant rescue from his
troubles, a rich uncle from India appeared upon the scene. So in our
day the villain is run to earth by a supernaturally gifted detective. But
making allowances for the fact that a great part of our fiction is the
work of women, who cannot (presumably) have come in contact with
the detective class, the sketches of these useful individuals by
feminine pens are tolerably close to nature, although they are copies
of pre-existing portraits; or evolved from their inner consciousness, in
the same way as the most vivid description of Switzerland is said to
be the work of Schiller, who had never seen the country.
My first professional experience of a detective was as follows. On a
certain evening, I found, to my dismay, that the entrance-hall of my
house had been practically cleared of its contents—a hat, two
umbrellas, and a valuable sealskin cloak having disappeared. I gave
information at the nearest police station, and was informed that a
police-officer would wait upon me. On the following day, the servant
announced that a man wanted to speak to me at the street-door. I
found an herculean individual in the garb of a navvy, with large
sandy whiskers and red hair, who informed me that he was a
detective. I ushered him into the dining-room, where he seated
himself, and listened very patiently to my story. He inquired as to the
character of the girl who answered the door. ‘Tolerable,’ I replied.
‘But she is under notice to leave.’
He expressed his conviction that the servant was in collusion with
the thief or thieves. At this moment I was again summoned to the
door, where I beheld a somewhat diminutive individual, attired as a
clergyman. He was an elderly man, with silver hair, a clear pink-and-
white complexion, and wore a suit of superfine broadcloth, with a
white cravat. His ‘get-up’ to the smallest detail was faultless, even to
the gold-rimmed double eyeglass. ‘You have a detective here?’
‘Yes.’
‘I am a sergeant of the E division; can I speak to him?’
In another minute the pair were seated side by side, as great a
contrast as it is possible to conceive.
Finding that my business alone was not the cause of his visit, I
courteously left them to themselves. In a few minutes, the
‘clergyman’ left the house, expressing a hope that I should obtain
some tidings of my lost property. The ‘navvy’ remained for about half
an hour, relating some of his experiences. ‘You see, sir, we have
different tools for different jobs. If there is to be any rough-and-
tumble business, any work requiring strength and muscle, anything
dangerous, they employ a man like me.’ The speaker stretched his
powerful limbs as he spoke with some natural pride. ‘Our sergeant
would be of no use at all in such work. He does the delicate work,
the organising part of the affair—same as a general.’ The ‘navvy’
then went on to relate how he had lately been employed to detect
the supposed defalcations of a barmaid at a small beershop in a low
quarter of the town. The customary expedient of paying for supplies
with marked coin was not deemed sufficient, as an opinion existed
that the girl was a member of a gang, whom it was deemed prudent
to discover. ‘So, for a fortnight, I haunted that public, as you see me
now, passing for a navvy who was taking a holiday and spending his
savings; sometimes sitting in the taproom, and sometimes in front of
the bar, smoking and chatting with all comers. The suspicions
formed proved to be correct; and the girl turned out to be an agent of
a gang of area-sneaks and burglars.’
I am compelled to record that my loquacious friend was not equally
successful in my case, no trace of the missing property ever having
been discovered.
My next experience of detectives was on two occasions when I
officiated as a grand-juryman. The reader is probably aware that the
grand-jurymen sit in a room in the immediate proximity of the court,
listening to evidence for the prosecution only, the prisoner not being
produced; the object being to discover whether the prisoner shall be
put on his trial or not. Sometimes there is a perfect procession of
detectives, of every type, according to the nature of the case. One
will appear habited as a workman, unshaven, and giving one the
notion of being out of employment; to be followed by another
dressed in the most faultless style. They are all remarkable for giving
their evidence in an admirable manner, beginning at the beginning,
never using a superfluous word, and leaving off when the end has
arrived. This is in strong contrast to the ordinary witness, especially
the female witness, whom it is difficult to keep to the point. One of
the detectives made a lasting impression on me. He might have
stepped on to the boards of a fashionable theatre as the exponent of
Sir Frederick Blount in Lord Lytton’s play of Money—a very light
overcoat, check trousers, patent leather boots, white gaiters and
pearl buttons, lemon-coloured kid gloves, and a silver-headed
Malacca cane. He was very pale, with flaxen hair parted down the
middle, and a light fluffy moustache. The jury opened their eyes very
wide when he commenced his business-like statement by saying
that he was a sergeant in the detective force. He had been driving a
swell dogcart in company with another detective, on the look-out for
some noted horse-stealers in one of the Eastern Counties. He had
met them driving a cart to which a stolen horse was attached. They
obeyed his command for a while to follow him to the market town,
but suddenly attempted flight across the fields, deserting their cart
and horses; but were pursued and captured.
The following is a notable instance of shrewdness on the part of a
detective. Some burglars had been disturbed in their work in a house
near the Regent’s Park by a wakeful butler. He was armed with a
gun, and he succeeded in capturing one burglar and wounding
another, who escaped. There was no doubt of the latter fact, as
spots of blood were plainly discernible on the snowy ground. When
the day for the examination of the captured burglar arrived, a
detective placed himself in the police court in a position whence he
could watch the countenances of the general public. He wisely
argued that some friend of the prisoner would attend in order to
convey the earliest information to the wounded burglar of the result
of the examination of his friend. For a while the detective scanned
the grimy features of the audience in vain; at length he fancied that a
woman betrayed more than ordinary interest in the evidence
adduced. At the conclusion of the examination, he followed the
woman to a humble lodging in the Borough; and there, stretched on
a miserable pallet, lay the burglar with a bullet-wound in his leg.
A detective who had followed a felonious clerk from England to the
United States, lost the scent at Buffalo, which is about twenty miles
from the celebrated Falls of Niagara. The detective argued that no
one would come so near to the Falls without paying a visit to them.
He went accordingly, and the first person he saw was the runaway
clerk absorbed in admiration of the Horse-shoe Fall.
With a singular occurrence, which happened to myself, I will
conclude these rambling notes. On the 25th of January 1885, I was
seated at tea with my family in my house, which is located in a very
quiet street in West Kensington. The servant appeared and said a
gentleman wished to speak to me. He had not inquired for any one in
particular, but had said that ‘any gentleman would do.’ I must remind
the reader that all London was at this time ringing with the details of
the dynamite explosion at the House of Commons and the Tower on
the preceding day. I found a tall gentlemanly individual about thirty,
of the genus ‘swell,’ who spoke with all the tone and manner of a
person accustomed to good society. After a momentary glance at
me, he turned his head and kept his eyes intently fixed on the farther
end of the street. He spoke in a low tone, and in somewhat hurried
and excited accents. ‘I want you to assist me in arresting two Irish
Americans. I have been following them for some time, and they have
just discovered that fact.’
‘Are you a detective?’ I inquired.
‘I am,’ he replied with his gaze still concentrated on the somewhat
foggy street. ‘I can see them still,’ he continued.
Now, I am afraid, when I record my reply, I shall be placed on the
same pedestal with Sir John Falstaff at the battle of Shrewsbury, so
far as physical courage is concerned. But I had only lately recovered
from a prostrating illness, which had left me very weak, and had
been confined to the house for a fortnight under medical certificate. I
briefly stated these facts, and added, that I feared I was not at that
moment qualified for an affair such as he alluded to. He sighed in
response, and without removing his gaze from his quarry, said: ‘I
wish I could see a policeman,’ and walked rapidly away in the
direction of the two men.
Assuming his story to be a true one, the men must have purposely
decoyed him into a quiet street, and there waited, in order to solve
the point whether they were in reality being tracked. Reluctant to
attempt their arrest single-handed, the detective rang at the first door
he came to, to throw them off their guard, and cause them to
suppose that he had friends in the street; also on the chance that he
might obtain a stalwart assistant in his desperate adventure. I have
never heard anything further of my mysterious visitor. My readers
can easily imagine the diversified comments to which my cautious
conduct has given rise—how I have missed a golden opportunity of
immortalising myself, and of becoming the hero of the day! how I
have probably escaped death by knife or revolver from two
desperadoes, who, under the circumstances, could easily have
effected their escape in a retired street and in the gray dusk of a
Sabbath evening.
 A BONE TO PICK WITH ARTISTS.
I have a bone to pick with my friends the artists! I use the word
‘friends’ advisedly, for have I not had the entrée for years to several
studios in artistic Kensington? First and foremost was that of poor T.
L. Rowbotham, who was so suddenly removed from amongst us
some ten years ago, leaving a reputation for breezy coast scenery,
which is still green in the memory of the public. My ground of offence
is this: that they invest their subjects with so much of their own
poetical imagination, that when we subsequently make acquaintance
with the localities, an acute sense of disappointment is experienced.
Thus, I had been familiar for years with the exquisite engraving after
Turner of Abbotsford, wherein the abode of the Wizard of the North
peers forth like some huge baronial castle from a dense forest of
trees which extends to the bank of the murmuring Tweed. The happy
time arrived at length when I was fated to make acquaintance with
Scotland and its lovely scenery. Need I say that I included in my
explorations Abbotsford and Melrose. My heart beat high as I felt
that I was within a couple of miles of renowned Abbotsford. Could I
not see in my mind’s eye the massive entrance porch, as sketched
by Sir William Allan, R.A.; the baronial hall with the knights in
armour, and so on? What was the reality? A very comfortable
country mansion, not of any great size, and the dense forest melted
into thin air! I must candidly admit, with respect to the last point, that
the artist was not responsible for this omission, as the plantation had
been cut down for sanitary reasons by the descendants of the great
Sir Walter. But the rooms were terribly shrunken as compared with
the images in my mind’s eye, as created by the imaginative Turner
and Allan. Melrose Abbey could not be better; but I was disappointed
to find the sacred fane so hemmed in by poor buildings, which never
appear in the artist’s sketches.
On one occasion, I was carefully watching the deft fingers of my
friend Smith, as he rapidly placed upon paper the outward
resemblance of a picturesque water-mill in a valley in the Lowlands.
Suddenly his pencil described a swelling mountain in the far
distance. In vain I protested at this outrage on authenticity and
vraisemblance. Smith was firm, and descanted in eloquent terms on
the improvement caused by the addition. Herein lies the key of my
ground of complaint.
Haddon Hall is another of my painful awakenings. It is worthy a
pilgrimage to explore those tapestried halls, for they are full of
interest, and the Hall itself is beautifully situated. But he who has
never studied the hundreds of views of Haddon which are in
existence, will be the happier man. The chambers have a dwarfed
and shrunken appearance. The miniature terrace with its moss-
grown steps looking like a view seen through the wrong end of a
telescope, completed my disappointment.
Fontainebleau was a success, because I was not familiar with any
magnified views thereof. Always excepting the famous courtyard in
front of the renowned horse-shoe staircase, down the steps of which
the defeated Emperor slowly trod ere he bade farewell to his legions,
prior to his departure for Elba. Do we not all know the celebrated
print after Horace Vernet, wherein Napoleon I. is depicted embracing
General Petit, while the stalwart standard-bearer of the erst
victorious eagle covers his weeping face with one hand. In the
immense space, the serried ranks of the Imperial Guard stand like
mournful statues. I sighed as I contemplated the moderate-sized
square. Another illusion had departed!
Any one who has seen the chamber at Holyrood in which Mary
Stuart held high festival with her ladies, listening the while to the
love-songs of the Italian Rizzio, will candidly admit that it is one of
the smallest supper-rooms in existence! Snug, decidedly
—‘exceeding snug,’ as Sir Lucius O’Trigger remarks with respect to
intramural interment in the Abbey at Bath. And here I must admit that
there is one brilliant exception to the theory I have laid down—
Edinburgh! I have never heard a single individual express
disappointment with the first sight of ‘Auld Reekie!’ Climatic
surroundings of course increase or diminish the enthusiasm.
Probably no city has been so profusely illustrated, and when the
special points are seen for the first time, they are recognised as old
familiar friends. Well do I remember my first experience. The transit
from the south at that time was not managed with the same speed or
the same punctuality as nowadays. I was timed to arrive at the
Caledonian station at eleven p.m. It was considerably past midnight,
and dark as pitch, when I stepped into a cab amidst torrents of rain,
and requested to be driven to a certain hotel. During the journey, I
fancied I caught a glimpse of the Scott Monument, and felt a
spasmodic thrill in consequence. When I descended to the
breakfast-room the following morning, all was changed. Before my
gaze stretched the long line of Princes Street, with the elegant
Gothic spire of Scott’s Monument tapering gracefully into the blue
sunlit air. The cries of the Newhaven fishwives were as music to my
ear.
I was so impatient to mount the Castle Hill and the Calton Hill, that I
wished I could be Sir Boyle Roche’s bird, and be in two places at
once. To describe the views from these celebrated eminences would
be to relate a ‘twice-told tale.’ But even at this distance of time I
smile at my outspoken delight as I ‘spotted’ places I had been
familiar with from childhood (on paper), and their unexpected relation
to each other. ‘Why, that is Holyrood below me!’ and then I
remembered that the old palace must have a local habitation
somewhere. But there are two effects which remain for ever
imprinted on my memory. The rainclouds had gathered again, and as
they scudded rapidly across the heavens, the Castle and Rock were
one moment in bright sunlight, and then involved in the deepest
gloom, so that the green-covered base appeared as unsubstantial in
the mist as a fairy palace. The second effect was the Old Town at
night as viewed from Princes Street, with the twinkling lights piled
high in air, as if they denoted the lofty towers of a palace of the
gnomes. The walk of a few yards changes the entire scene. Arthur
Seat, Salisbury Crags, and the Pentlands seen from a different angle
create a new picture. Edinburgh, changeable and inexhaustible, the
kaleidoscope of cities!
I wish to touch with becoming reverence on the disillusions which
may lie under the pictorial representations of the Holy Land. Inspired
by those illustrations, how often have I in imagination left Jerusalem
by one of the city gates, and explored the Valley of Jehoshaphat,
ascended the Mount of Olives, and followed the convolutions of the
brook Kedron, the gently rising moon illumining meanwhile the
garden of Gethsemane! Would a personal examination of some of
those sacred places be attended with perfect satisfaction? I fear not.
 THE SICKROOM FIRE.
I am neither doctor nor nurse by profession, but have had twice in my
lifetime to abandon my ordinary occupation and take charge of
members of my family who suffered from severe illness. Like others
who were not taught ‘the regular way,’ I had to meet difficulties as
they arose, and, as often happens, necessity became the mother of
invention.
My first patient was my father: he suffered from nervous fever; and
the slightest noise caused him great suffering, every sound
appearing to be magnified to an extraordinary degree. It was, of
course, important that nothing should occur to break the light sleep
which he got from time to time. His illness occurred in winter, and the
season was an unusually severe one of frost. It was necessary to
keep a fire in the bedroom; yet I found that the poking of it, dropping
of cinders on the fender-pan, and the putting of coals on the fire,
interfered sadly with my patient’s rest; and I saw that I must get rid of
the noise if my nursing was to be a success. My first step was to
send out of the room both fender and fire-irons, and to get an
ordinary walking-stick, such as is sold for sixpence. With this I
cleared the bars and did what poking was necessary for several
weeks. When it took fire, as it occasionally did, a rub upon the hob
put it out. All the rattle of fire-irons and fender was got rid of, and my
first difficulty was overcome. My remaining trouble was putting coals
on the fire. If I shook them out of the scuttle into the grate, it made a
deal of noise; if I rooted them out with a scoop, the sound was nearly
as great, and more irritating, because more prolonged. I managed to
get out of that difficulty by making up the coal in parcels. I brought
my coal-box downstairs, and taking a couple of scoopfuls of coal at a
time, I folded it in a piece of newspaper, and then tied each parcel
with string. I put the parcels one upon another in it until the coal-box
was full, and took them to my patient’s room. When the fire wanted
replenishing, I placed a parcel upon it; the paper burned, away, and
the coal settled down gently with little or no sound. After this, the fire
was no longer a trouble to me or to my patient.
Some years after my first experience at nursing, my wife was
suddenly attacked with typhus fever. I had to clear the house of
children and servants, and send for two hospital nurses. When I was
preparing for the night on the evening of their arrival, the nurse who
was about to sit up smiled when she saw me bring into the patient’s
room a coal-box full of paper parcels. She evidently looked upon it
as the whim of an amateur. The next morning, she took quite another
view of the case, and said: ‘I thought, sir, that I knew my business
pretty well; but you certainly have taught me something I did not
know—how to manage a sickroom fire. Why, I often let the fire out,
and had to sit for hours in the cold, for fear of wakening patients
when they were getting a good sleep, besides missing the fire
afterwards, when they wakened, and I had not a warm drink for them
or the means of making it. With your parcels, I had a good fire all
night without a sound, and never had to soil my fingers.’
 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY’S WESTERN TERMINUS.

Port Moody, at the head of Burrard Inlet, was the point first selected
as a terminus for the Canadian Pacific Railway. The terminus finally
decided upon, however, lies on Coal Harbour, near the entrance to
this inlet, where the city of Vancouver is now springing up with great
rapidity. The Company’s machine-shops and terminal works will be
located here, and it promises to be an important commercial city at
no distant date. Tenders have been spoken of for a fortnightly mail-
service between that point and Yokohama and Hong-kong. It is also
probable that the carrying of the bulk of tea shipments for England
and the eastern American States and provinces will be done by this
route. This makes the outlook all the more promising for Vancouver.
Town-lots of land have been laid off by the provincial government
fronting the anchorage on English Bay, a large portion of which will
be used by the railway Company for terminal works.
 ‘LET THERE BE LIGHT.’
‘Let there be light;’ and through the abysmal deep,
Where Darkness sat enthroned in silent state,
A tremor passed, as though propitious Fate
Had roused some charmèd castle from the sleep
That sealed all eyes from battlement to keep;
For man or friend the warder dare not wait
To parley with the Voice outside the gate,
For living thing must walk, fly, swim, and creep.

‘Let there be light:’ thus at Creation’s dawn,

Ere earth had shape, the glorious mandate ran.
Nature obeyed; and o’er the face of night
Went forth the rosy streaks of our first morn.
Still Nature keeps to one unvarying plan,
And God-like souls still cry: ‘Let there be light.’

Albert Francis Cross.

Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Paternoster Row,

London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.

All rights reserved.

 FOOTNOTES:
[1] It should be understood that this series of articles deals mainly
with English as apart from Scotch law.
[2] In Scotland, the Testament is not made use of in taking the
oath. The witness is only required to hold up his right hand, and
repeat the words of the oath after the administrator.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S
JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART,
FIFTH SERIES, NO. 118, VOL. III, APRIL 3, 1886 ***

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