Ambient computational environments

The cost of computational resources is expected to continue to decrease. This allows us to consider embedding these resources in our environment for use as needed. Ambient computational environments (ACEs) represent a computer architecture in which computational resources, sensors and actuators, in their widest sense, are available in our offices, conference rooms, hallways and other places. Users must be able to control, with authorization, these computational resources within their proximate area, and access computational services that are long-lived and extremely robust. These users must also be able to interact in multiple ways with ACEs. We are developing prototype ACEs with these features and are exploring the related architectural and deployment issues.