Ubiquitous and Pervasive Commerce: New Frontiers for Electronic Business

196 Pages·2006·1.633 MB·English

by  George Roussos (auth.), George Roussos MSc, PhD (eds.)

Computer Communications and Networks
The Computer Communications and Networks series is a range of textbooks,
monographs and handbooks. It sets out to provide students, researchers and
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Emphasis is placed on clear and explanatory styles that support a tutorial
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Also in this series:
An Information Security Handbook
John M.D. Hunter
1-85233-180-1
Multimedia Internet Broadcasting: Quality, Technology and Interface
Andy Sloane and Dave Lawrence (Eds)
1-85233-283-2
Information Assurance: Surviving in the Information Environment
Andrew Blyth and Gerald L. Kovacich
1-85233-326-X
UMTS: Origins, Architecture and the Standard
Pierre Lescuyer (Translation Editor: Frank Bott)
1-85233-676-5
OSS for Telecom Networks
Kundan Misra
1-85233-808-3
The Quintessential PIC® Microcontroller 2nd edition
Sid Katzen
1-85233-942-X
Intelligent Spaces: The Application of Pervasive ICT
Alan Steventon and Steve Wright (Eds)
1-84628-002-8
George Roussos (Ed.)
Ubiquitous and
Pervasive
Commerce
New Frontiers for Electronic Business
George Roussos, MSc, PhD, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK
Series editor
Professor A.J. Sammes, BSc, MPhil, PhD, FBCS, CEng
CISM Group, Cranfield University, RMCS, Shrivenham, Swindon SN6 8LA, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Control Number: 2005929865
Computer Communications and Networks ISSN 1617-7975
ISBN-10: 1-84628-035-4 e-ISBN 1-84628-000-0 Printed on acid-free paper
ISBN-13: 978-1-84628-035-1
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Preface
At the core of this book is the interplay between technological and business
innovation and social practice. Although the benefits of 50 years of rapid
advances in digital telecommunications and computing technology have not
benefited everyone equally, they have nevertheless transformed almost every
aspectofthewaywelive.Oneareawheretechnologyhashadaclearimpactis
inthewayweconductbusiness.Therateofchangethat bringsaboutmoder-
nity has been considerably strengthened by technological advances applied
to product manufacturing, distribution, financing, and management, which
arguably form the substrate for globalization and consumerism.
It is thus no surprise that businesses closely monitor advances in technol-
ogy and invest considerable resources in exploring possible new applications
and marketopportunities. Yet, consumers’acceptance of new ways of buying
and selling depends as much on business and technology as on our society’s
culture and the culture of the material environment that defines our values,
sensibilities, and thus our commitments.
Moreover, the rate of technological innovation is such that to the con-
sumer,technologyimplementationisfully opaque.Nonetheless,opportunities
to carry out commerce in novel ways also introduce risk to established so-
cial structures, conventions,and institutions. In modernity, risk management
is one of the core functions of society and to be successful in this, societies
depend on their trust of experts. Experts take risks on behalf of society and
are responsible for evaluating the full extent of a particular set of hazards
including those associated with a particular technology.
With the deploymentofubiquitous and pervasivecomputing for business,
technology becomes indistinguishable from everyday objects and thus disap-
pears from public view, so that even its mere existence is not immediately
obvious.Unlikeprevioustechnologygenerations,itsoperationissilentandits
inner workings less accessible than at any other time in the past.
But technology and business do not always combine seamlessly either.
Often,technologistshavelimitedinterestinthe businessimplicationsoftech-
nologywhichtheyviewasbeingdominantoverallotheraspectsofcommercial
VIII Preface
activity.This was illustratedin the 1990sduring the boom ofelectronic com-
merce when business startups expected to dominate the market often on the
basis of a single technical innovation, frequently without a viable business
case.
Thiswasalsotheperiodinwhichtheconceptofubiquitouscommercewas
born: Throughout 1999, Anatole Gershman and his team at Accenture Labs
werelookingatmobiletelephonyasachannelforcommerce.Mostoftheideas
they initially considered they rejected because of their narrow focus on the
technicalcapabilityofthemobilephoneandtheirlimitedappealtoconsumers.
InAugustofthatyear,whilewaitingaflightoutofO’HareAirportatChicago,
they observed different people using their telephones and it became clear
to them that what is truly different with mobile phones is that they offer
ubiquitousopportunitiesfornegotiationandtransactions,thusforubiquitous
commerce.
Whilethisinterpretationofubiquitouscommercebecameacorethemefor
theworkcarriedoutatAccentureLabs,othersalsoarrivedatasimilarconcept
startingfromatechnologicalperspective.Indeed,bythelate1990scomputing
research was turning its attention to a concept that first emerged earlier in
thedecadeandwhilereferredtobydifferentnamesitwasincreasinglyknown
as ubiquitous computing. Many asked what would be the applications when
this technology could be used for commerce.
Another development that contributed in making ubiquitous commerce
the focus of different research programmes in the early 2000s, has been the
increased interest in Radio Frequency Identification. This technology allows
for the augmentation of artifacts with computational and limited wireless
communications capability at very low cost, thus providing a viable solution
to one of the core concerns of ubiquitous computing. Recently, RFID has
been used in a variety of practical deployments with businesses increasingly
interested in implementing ubiquitous commerce at a large scale.
ThesedifferentviewscametogetherinOctober2003atthefirstubiquitous
commerce workshop organized in conjunction with Ubicomp 2003 in Seattle,
WA, USA. During this workshop different aspects of ubiquitous commerce
were discussed and the tensions highlighted above surfaced. This book is the
extension of the discourse that started with that workshop, enriched with
contributionsfromseveralmoreauthors.Ihopeitprovidesusefulinsightsinto
the technological, business, and societal aspects of ubiquitous and pervasive
commerce.
Hampstead, April 2005 George Roussos
Acknowledgements
AlessandroAcquistiwouldliketothankHalVarian,GeorgeRoussos,andthe
InformationTechnologydepartmentatHECMontrealforhelpanddiscussions
about the topics and models presented in Chapter 7.
Tony Salvador, Kenneth T. Anderson, and John W. Sherry would like
to thank Edgar Whitley, London School of Economics, for his assistance in
developing Chapter 10.
GregorHackenbroich,ChristofBornh,StephanHaller,andJoachimSchaper
would like to thank Tao Lin, Brian Mo, Uwe Kubach, Rama Gurram, Peter
Ebert,andHartmutVoglerfortheirvaluablecontributionstotheAuto-IDIn-
frastructureproject.Wealsobenefitedfromfruitfuldiscussionswithothercol-
leagues in SAP including Bernd Sieren, BerndLauterbach,ChristophLessm-
llmann, Ami Heitner, Alexander Renz, and Kai Morisse.
Large parts of Chapters 4 and 6 have been funded by the M-Lab (www.
m-lab.ch),ajointresearchinitiativeofETHZurichandtheUniversityofSt.
Gallen,Switzerland.TheM-Labis workingwith severalinternationalcompa-
nies on business applications based on ubiquitous computing technologies.
Roger Till and other staff at GS1 UK (visit www.gs1uk.org) provided
input in Chapter 2 regarding the supply chain standards that constitute the
EAN.UCC and the EPCglobal systems.
Project MyGrocer discussed in Chapter 8 has been partially supported
by the European Commission under research contract IST-1999-26238. The
MyGrocerConsortiumconsistsofthefollowingmembers:NokiaCorporation,
ProcterandGamble,UnisysCorporation,ATMELCorporation,PouliadisAs-
sociates Corporation,Athens University of Economics and Business, Helsinki
University of Technology, S-Markt, and Atlantic Supermarkets.
Contents
Preface ........................................................VII
Acknowledgements ............................................ IX
Contributors...................................................XIII
1 Ubiquitous Computing for Electronic Business
George Roussos .................................................. 1
Part I Technology
2 Supply Chain Management Standards in Ubiquitous
Commerce
George Roussos .................................................. 15
3 Optimizing Business Processes by Automatic Data
Acquisition: RFID Technology and Beyond
Gregor Hackenbroich, Christof Bornho¨vd, Stephan Haller, and
Joachim Schaper................................................. 33
4 RFID in Movable Asset Management
Matthias Lampe, Martin Strassner, and Elgar Fleisch................. 53
Part II Business
5 Ubiquitous Services: Extending Customer Relationship
Management
Anatole Gershman and Andrew Fano ............................... 75
6 The Business Value of Ubiquitous Computing Technologies
Elgar Fleisch and Christian Tellkamp............................... 93
XII Contents
7 Ubiquitous Computing, Customer Tracking, and Price
Discrimination
Alessandro Acquisti ..............................................115
8 The Design of Pervasive Retail Experiences
Panos Kourouthanassis and George Roussos.........................133
Part III Society
9 Legal Challenges to Ubiquitous Commerce
Olli Pitka¨nen....................................................157
10 Thoughts on Retail System Designto Support Polimorphic
Actions Among Clerks: That’ll Be $20 — But if You Buy
Two, I’ll Knock off 10%
Tony Salvador, Kenneth T. Anderson, and John W. Sherry ...........167
11 Privacy Protection and RFID
Simson Garfinkel ................................................177
The Code of Fair Information Practices........................189
The ISTAG Maria Scenario....................................191
Index..........................................................193