One only need provide their valid identification to access available resources. The authors of this proposal are tired of carrying ten pound computers, pagers, cell phones, and other personal devices everywhere they go. Access to an ACE requires communication services, as well as efficient and intuitive user interfaces, which in turn require innovative interaction devices and methods. Management of user intentions, history, and command conflicts, as represented by user workspaces, require negotiation mechanisms among multiple users, their access devices, the environment, and ongoing computations and services. We believe information management and retrieval services will be improved by utilizing user workspaces.
ACEs bring a new paradigm of computing to end users.
Computational resources that are readily available in the environment. ACEs maintain a user's workspace over long periods and make that worksapace, or selected portions, available from multiple, selected access points. We believe the model of user's co-opting local resources carries over to other applications. We believe ACEs are directly applicable to future command and control systems. We believe these challenges can be met through solid software and network engineering, by consider the system as a whole, and applying known techniques.