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James Scott  

James Scott
Researcher, Microsoft Research Cambridge

james.scott @ microsoft.com

James Scott is a researcher in the Sensors and Devices Group, part of the Computer Mediated Living Group of Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK. He joined Microsoft in January 2007.

He was previously a researcher at Intel Research in Cambridge, UK from February 2003 to December 2006. Prior to that, he completed a PhD at the University of Cambridge.

Research Interests

  • Mobile Devices
  • Ubiquitous Computing
  • Wireless Networking

Current Research

I am currently involved with a number of research projects including in the areas of interaction with mobile devices, power saving (see papers on Somniloquy and CABMAN), the SenseCam wearable camera, and remote awareness for project team members.

Previous Research (pre-Microsoft)

Haggle

Haggle Project The Haggle project is exploring networking for mobile users using local peer-to-peer wireless connections as well as infrastructure-based Internet access when available. The use of local connectivity is not well-supported in todays deployed devices and applications - for example, many users rely on USB keys for transferring data when their devices have compatible wireless interfaces.

We envision a networking environment in which local connections and user mobility are as important as infrastructure access is today for delivering data - an environment which we call Pocket Switched Networking. Enabling factors for Pocket Switched Networking include the recent deployment of programmable mobile devices with wireless networking, for example with smart phones, and the huge increase in the sizes of memory available on such devices, so that our devices have spare capacity to carry data around for others.

There are many challenges in this field, including the characterisation of the properties of networks relying on human mobility, the construction of a networking architecture which can support both local and global connectivity, the problem of forwarding data efficiently in such networks, and also issues with security, privacy, and usability. We aim to explore this space using testbed deployments and experimentation.

Secure Mobile Computing

Secure Mobile Computing screenshot The secure mobile computing project at how people can make use of of public hardware (e.g. internet cafes, situated displays, etc) without exposing themselves to security threats in the form of keylogging, screengrabbing, remote session hijacking, etc. This is achieved using a personal device (e.g. a smart phone) in combination to the public device, where the personal device runs all the users applications and censors the output to and input from public devices. The system aims to capture the privacy and trustability of the personal device with the usability of the large input/output hardware of situated devices.

The paper can be found below, and some details for building the system (based on VNC) can be found on my external page here.

Place Lab

Place Lab Place Lab enables low-cost, easy-to-use device positioning for location-enhanced computing applications. Place Lab tries to provide positioning which works worldwide, both indoors and out (unlike GPS which only works well outside). Place Lab clients can determine their location privately without constant interaction with a central service (unlike badge tracking or mobile phone location services where the service owns your location information).

The Place Lab approach is to allow devices like notebooks, PDAs and cell phones to locate themselves by listening for radio beacons such as 802.11 access points, GSM cell phone towers, and fixed Bluetooth devices that already exist in large numbers around us in the environment. These beacons all have unique or semi-unique IDs, for example, a MAC address. Clients compute their own location by hearing one or more IDs, looking up the associated beacons’ positions in a locally cached map, and estimating their own position referenced to the beacons’ positions.

Audio Location

Audio Location Screenshot The audio location project looked at the use of commodity audio hardware to perform fine-grained location of people in the environment. Unlike other fine-grained location systems, we are using completely off-the-shelf audio hardware. Furthermore, no "tag" device is required for users.

The system operates by detecting sharp noises such as finger clicks, and determining the 3D position of the clicks using a multilateration algorithm. This can be used to construct 3D user interfaces, whereby a person clicking their fingers in a particular region of space might cause actions such as activating a light switch, or controlling a music player.
The publication details including the talk can be found below. Demonstration videos can be found here and here (Warning: videos are ~35Mb). The audio location prototype was demonstrated at UbiComp 2004 and MobiSys 2004. To build your own Audio Location system, see these instructions.

Networked Surfaces

Networked Surface My PhD, conducted at the (now renamed) Laboratory for Communication Engineering at the University of Cambridge, was on a radical concept in local area networking known as Networked Surfaces. This network used physical surfaces such as tables or desks to provide connectivity, allowing users to enjoy the convenience and user-friendliness of wireless networking, while also providing the dedicated bandwidth and powering of devices possible with wired networks.

Unlike with cradles, objects could be placed anywhere on a Networked Surface rather than only at a specific location, and the location of objects could be determined to within centimetres, enabling applications such as automatic and dynamic association of devices based on positioning.

Interns/Post Docs Supervised

Professional Activities

Excluding reviews - too many to count :)

Publications

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