Some Personal Lessons and Insights from 15 Years of Mobile Computing

M. Satyanarayanan
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University

Abstract:

This talk is a personal retrospective on mobile computing. I first
became aware of the potential and challenges of mobile computing
around, with the emergence of laptops with enough resources
to run Unix and the emergence of NCR WaveLAN 915MHz wireless
technology. Much has happened in mobile computing in the 15 years
since then. Some of it was only of transient interest while other
developments are of deeper and longer-term significance. Recent
results offer hope that some long-standing problems may be more
tractable than originally thought. In this talk I will try to
distill what I have learned about mobile computing into a set of
lessons and insights. Hopefully, this highly personal account will
have some value to workshop participants in thinking about the
exciting challenges they face at the intersection of mobility and
sensors.

(slides)