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■ T-Engine: ’s News Architecture Is Ready for Prime Time News contact: Shani Murray ■ [email protected] ■ Virtual Displays and the Future of Mobile and Portable Devices

T-Engine: Japan’s Ubiquitous Computing Architecture Is Ready for Prime Time

Jan Krikke

apan is quietly positioning itself for the • Standard T-Engine (75 mm 120 mm) available for T-Engine. According to J next phase in digital technology: ubiq- for portable information devices with the T-Engine Forum Web site (www. uitous computing. A sign of things to comparatively advanced user interface t-engine.org), it includes network pro- come is T-Engine, arguably the most features, such as smart phones; tocol stacks, filing systems, Japanese advanced ubiquitous computing platform • Micro T-Engine (60 mm 80 mm) for language processing, eTRON-specified in the world. T-Engine enables the dis- devices with relatively basic user inter- security software, a GUI, and audio pro- tribution of software resources, includ- face features, such as home electronic cessing. Other middleware will soon be ing middleware developed on T-Kernel, appliances and musical instruments; added to support speech recognition, its compact, real-time operating system. • Nano T-Engine (coin-sized) for small MP3, and digital watermarks. The plat- The platform also features standardized home electronic appliances; and form has also attracted support from hardware and tamper-resistant network • Pico T-Engine for the smallest units in American software makers. Sun Micro- security. a ubiquitous computing environment, systems ported Java to T-Engine, Mon- Ubiquitous computing (one person, such as switches, lighting equipment, taVista did the same with its real-time many computers) is the third era in com- sensors, and valves. version of Linux, and Microsoft fol- puting. It follows the mainframe era lowed suit by porting Windows CE to (one computer, many people) and the Interest has shifted from T-Engine. The ports are referred to as PC era (one person, one computer). T- non-native kernel extensions or, infor- Engine’s developers consider it the first desktop computers to mally, as “guest operating systems.” platform to offer a complete end-to-end mobile computers such solution for ubiquitous computing. as cell phones, wearable FROM TRON TO ITRON The spiritual father of T-Engine and THE T-ENGINE FORUM computers, and advanced chairman of the T-Engine Forum is Uni- The project is an initiative of five PDA-like devices such as versity of professor Ken Saka- leading Japanese chipmakers and 17 Ubiquitous Communicator mura, one of Japan’s most famous com- other Japanese tech firms. In 2002, they puter architects. Sakamura is a veteran formed the T-Engine Forum, the con- terminals. in ubiquitous computing. In the 1980s, sortium that developed the specifica- he launched the TRON Project, an open tions for T-Kernel and T-Engine’s devel- In 2003, the Forum adopted stan- computing and communications archi- opment boards. dards for ultrasmall (0.4 mm2) tags tecture. TRON was designed to make T-Engine enables developers to rap- capable of holding 6,000 times more computing a utility, like electricity and idly build ubiquitous computing solu- data than bar codes. The chips, part of water. It included ITRON, a real-time tions by using off-the-shelf components. the T-Engine family, are equipped with operating system for embedded devices, Among them are four standard T-Engine tiny antennae that can transmit data to CTRON for multitask network pro- boards of varying dimensions for dif- a reading device about 30 cm away. cessing, and BTRON, a multitask, multi- ferent application areas: A growing library of middleware is user OS with a GUI. TRON’s security

4 PERVASIVEcomputing Published by the IEEE CS and IEEE ComSoc ■ 1536-1268/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE architecture, eTRON, was introduced in the 1990s. Asked what led him to ubiquitous computing before the term gained cur- rency, Sakamura says, “I envisioned that the microprocessor, which had appeared in [the] 1970s and had become more powerful each year, would be embedded in many things. It was already obvious that industrial equipment like assembly line controllers and robots would have embedded computers, but I thought common objects like sunglasses and furniture could benefit from embedded computers.” For example, Sakamura and his colleagues built many micro- processors into the TRON Intelligent House. He explains, “When sensors The four standard T-Engine boards were designed for different application areas, detected a breeze outside, the windows from smart phones and home appliances to sensors and switches. opened. When they detected rain, the windows closed and the air-condition- ing was switched on.” between the behaviors of two different China, Korea, and Singapore. Asked TRON had mixed success, but its implementations of [the] ITRON OS why membership has grown so rapidly, operating system for embedded systems, under certain conditions that were never Sakamura says T-Engine is an idea ITRON, became the most widely used explicitly mentioned in the specification. whose time has come. OS in the world—it’s used in robots, fax The subtle difference between imple- “Interest has shifted from desktop machines, digital cameras, and a host of mentations is akin to the different vari- computers to mobile computers such as other devices. Prior to the introduction eties of Posix-based Unix flavors we have cell phones, wearable computers, and of ITRON, Japanese electronics makers had in the past.” advanced PDA-like devices such as wrote their own OSs for embedded To address this problem, T-Kernel is Ubiquitous Communicator terminals,” chips, a time-consuming process. More- governed by the T-License, which allows he says, adding that advances in chip over, it resulted in a plethora of incom- developers to alter the code for specific technology are also a factor. “If today’s patible software. ITRON addressed this devices. However, altered code can’t be CPU’s were not powerful enough to run need. It offered specifications for a stan- distributed without Sakamura’s per- a lite version of Oracle database pro- dard real-time kernel that could be mission, because he holds the copyright. grams, Oracle would not have joined reused for different devices with minor Software written for one T-Kernel device the T-Engine Forum. The same applies adjustments. According to estimates by should in principle run on all T-Engine to Sun Microsystems. Java can now run the Japanese media, three to four billion devices. Unlike the GNU license, T- on small embedded computers. This is microprocessors are running ITRON. License doesn’t require developers to why Sun has joined the Forum.” Despite its popularity, ITRON has a make their code public. T-Kernel is pri- Windows and Linux, not real-time major flaw. It was based on the concept marily used in embedded systems, and OSs, are tweaked to simulate real-time of “weak standardization,” so devel- product know-how is often tied up with behavior. But Sakamura believes that opers could modify the OS to suit their the software. serious real-time embedded system devel- own requirements. TRON was meant opment requires T-Kernel or another to allow for competition while main- GROWING SUPPORT real-time OS kernel. taining compatibility, but as middle- The T-Engine Forum has grown from “The task dispatch time in the T- ware grew in size, weak standardiza- 22 members when it was founded in Kernel is in the sub-microsecond range,” tion made it difficult to create a unified 2002 to nearly 500 members today. he says. “RTLinux’s task/process switch development environment. Among them are nearly all of Japan’s time is larger than this. In MontaVista’s “When we produced the ITRON spec- blue chip companies and a growing scheme, the events that need to be ification,” Sakamura notes, “we didn’t number of global tech giants such as addressed with real-time response—say, spell out the implementation details. As Sony, Toyota, Microsoft, and IBM. The sub-microsecond range—are handled by a result, there were subtle differences Forum has development centers in native T-Kernel tasks. Application pro-

APRIL–JUNE 2005 PERVASIVEcomputing 5 NEWS NEWS in brief...

Virtual Displays and the Future CEO and founder. “I think we will likely see the first of Mobile and Portable Devices affordable virtual display eyeglasses for use with mobile wireless devices and portable media players as soon as this Bernard Cole Christmas, at a price that will be attractive to the average consumer,” he says. “By the following 2006 Christmas A postage-stamp-size computer display incorporated season at the latest it is likely that every new portable into eyeglasses—the visual equivalent of a 32-inch to 40- player and mobile device sold will be offering virtual dis- inch screen at 10 feet—might soon be possible in a form play eyeglasses as part of the package or as an optional that will appeal to the average user’s imagination and accessory.” pocketbook. The reason, Fan believes, is that all the critical elements According to Ross Rainville, product manager at IO Dis- are converging to make such devices a reality: the decreas- play Systems, there’s always been a modest market for ing cost of the basic building blocks, one or more high-vol- wearable displays that use stamp-sized LCDs positioned ume markets that will help lower costs, and one or more close to the eye. But the cost of the basic silicon, liquid “hot apps” that are ideally suited to drive adoption of vir- crystal building blocks, and glass optics—plus the weight— tual displays for mobile and portable media players. have made their use practical only in industrial, military, “The problem we have always faced in the headmounted and limited consumer markets such as gaming. virtual display market is the chicken and egg one of need- With headset prices from US$1,500 to $10,000 depend- ing a high-volume market to drive down the cost of the ing on resolution (ranging from 640 480 to 1280 1024 components and needing low-cost components to drive up pixels), companies such as IO Displays have survived and the volume,” notes Stephen Glasser, Incuiti’s vice president grown on selling a few hundred to a few thousand view- of marketing. Now, Fan says, manufacturers of the basic ers per month. silicon and LCD materials are taking advantage of the demand in the video camera and mobile-phone markets PUSHING THE PROTOTYPES for high-resolution pixel viewfinders to drive down the Auguring the emergence of wearable virtual-display eye- cost of the postage-stamp-sized display elements. glasses into mainstream consumer electronics, most of the Today, plastic is replacing the optics, which previously current players were at the recent Consumer Electronics required expensive and heavy glass components. “The Show. On the eyepiece side, this included Inginio, IO Dis- combination of plastic optics and low-cost display ele- play, Incuiti, Liteye, and WorldViz. On the technology ments will allow providers of the eyeglass-mounted dis- side, the four most active companies were Brillian, eMa- play units to very soon reach the magic [US]$100 to $200 gin, eLCOS, and Kopin, each with prototypes and refer- price point that will be needed to appeal to the mass mar- ence designs for technologies they’re championing. ket,” Fan says. The most mature technology is Kopin’s transmissive According to Sollitto, Brillian has a prototype reference LCDs. They’re designed to transmit light from a backlight platform design for an 800 600 pixel resolution LCOS- through the liquid crystal layer and out through the front based 3D viewing headset. The bill for materials is around to the user’s eye. Brillian and eLCOS are now using LCOS $350 now, but the company says it soon will be able to (liquid crystal on silicon), originally developed for large- drive costs down further. Kopin offers transmissive LCD- screen flat-panel displays, for headset and eyeglass viewer based 640 480 pixel headsets for $500 eyeglass viewers displays. for use with portable media players. Organic LEDs, championed by eMagin, generate self- In terms of “hot apps,” Fan says there’s a neat con- luminous displays that don’t require backlighting. junction between market needs and the display resolu- tions possible in near-eye viewers. “Multimedia is the big LOWERING COSTS thing right now in both the portable media player and Although the technology is moving into the main- 3G/4G mobile markets, with high-quality color displays stream, how soon is still a matter of debate. Rainville is of about 352 240 pixels (CIF) and 176 120 pixels cautiously optimistic that it might happen in the next (QCIF), respectively, at 30 frames a second,” he notes. three to four years, while Vincent Sollitto, Brillian’s pres- “Current near-eye display technologies are more than ade- ident and CEO, thinks it could be as soon as next year quate to these requirements and at a price that will be or mid-2007. Most optimistic is John C.C. Fan, Kopin’s attractive.”

6 PERVASIVEcomputing www.computer.org/pervasive NEWS

cessing that doesn’t require such strin- gent real-time response such as mail delivery would be handled leisurely in the Linux task that runs on top of T-Kernel. Microsoft had a similar mechanism in mind when they announced the port of Windows CE .NET to the T-Engine hardware platform. Real-time events are handled by T-Kernel, and only those that don’t require real-time response are han- The Ubiquitous ID Center has authorized Hitachi’s mu-Chip and Toppan’s T-Junction dled by [the] Windows CE side.” ucode tags for embedding in or attaching to objects in ubiquitous environments. Microsoft’s decision to join the T- Engine Forum surprised many people in Japan and beyond. The company had servers. The ucode tags use a 128-bit special. At home, it will serve as the been antagonistic toward TRON. But code that can be extended in 128-bit remote control for home entertainment Sakamura welcomed the software giant, units, creating a virtually limitless string systems and appliances. In the office, it saying, “The 21st century will be the age of numbers. will read a printer’s tag and order a of cooperation and not the age of com- The UID Center is conducting verifi- replacement cartridge as needed. petition.” In September 2004, Microsoft cation tests of the technology in several The Ubiquitous ID system is pro- and seven chipmakers announced their industries, among them transportation, tected by eTRON (Economy and Entity support for an embedded development housing, agriculture, and health care. TRON), a wide-area distribution system platform based on Windows CE 5.0 and Earlier this year, Japanese farmers, architecture based on tamper-resistant T-Kernel. A Microsoft spokesperson wholesalers, and retailers implemented hardware. eTRON chips are installed in explains: “The collaboration between a food traceability scheme using T- T-Engine boards to prevent tapping and the T-Engine Forum and Microsoft will Engine’s UID technology. Interest in the falsification; it also ensures that elec- enable our embedded partners and technology has increased in recent tronic information is safely delivered developers to extend their software, years, in part due to concerns about hardware assets, and knowledge in two mad cow disease, bird flu, and the mis- operating systems. T-Engine Forum labeling of food items. UID technology encompasses many working groups and lets retailers and consumers trace every topics besides software implementation. phase of the production process. A tag We anticipate our participation beyond on a packet of soybeans provides infor- Windows CE 5.0.” mation about where the beans were grown, what chemicals were used, and TAGS EVERYWHERE when. One of the “topics” Microsoft might To navigate this tagged environment, be referring to is the Ubiquitous ID the UID Center developed the Ubiqui- Center, T-Engine’s sister organization. tous Communicator, a PDA-like device The UID Center provides the infra- that reads ucode tags and retrieves the structure for managing electronic tags relevant data from the UID Center’s embedded in or attached to objects in a server database. The standard UC has a ubiquitous environment. The center host of features, including wireless LAN, developed the ucode, a multicode tag Voice over Internet Protocol, infrared that automatically identifies informa- data communication, and a biometric tion stored in bar codes, RFID chips, reader. Apart from the PDA-like version, smart cards, and electronic tags embed- the UID Center developed a cell phone ded in virtual entities such as software model and a watch style. All are built and electronic money. Comparable to with standard T-Engine boards. the ISBN (International Standard Book The multifunctional UC anticipates an Numbering) code used in the publish- environment in which electronic tags are ing industry, the UID Center assigns embedded in every conceivable object. The watch-style version of the Ubiquitous unique numbers to each tag and stores In a restaurant, the UC might read a tag Communicator reads tags and retrieves data relating to the object in database attached to a menu and display today’s relevant data from the database server.

APRIL–JUNE 2005 PERVASIVEcomputing 7 NEWS NEWS

Development of T-Engine products accelerated last year. Numerous com- panies introduced T-Engine boards, eTRON cards and readers, and network adapters. Japan’s two printing giants Dai Nippon and Toppan are producing ultrasmall tags that can be used in any- thing from books to doormats. Last year, Dai Nippon developed a T-Engine-based compact camera board that can distrib- ute real-time video over networks. Also proliferating is T-Engine software, includ- ing a protocol stack from Hitachi and a location-based-service framework from Oracle.

MULLTILINGUAL ENVIRONMENT One of the beneficiaries of growing A few Japanese cities have embedded hundreds of electronic tags and road sensors support for T-Engine is Personal Media in their pavement, sidewalks, and street furniture to help both tourists and the Corp., producer of T-Engine develop- handicapped get around. ment kits and a long-time developer of TRON products. In the 1990s, PMC through insecure network channels, an ID protection protocol to prevent developed Cho Kanji, a multilingual including the Internet. eTRON has a third parties from tracking the tag environment that supports Japanese, flexible cryptographic architecture and owner’s activities. Chinese, Korean, and about 40 other

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IEEE Computer Society languages. Cho Kanji is an alternative THE END OF AUTONOMY Publications Office for Unicode. The latter uses four-byte T-Engine technologies are finding 10662 Los Vaqueros Circle, PO Box 3014 encoding for pictographic characters. their way into a wide variety of envi- Los Alamitos, CA 90720-1314 Cho Kanji uses two-byte encoding, a ronments, from homes to automobiles. considerable advantage in network Toyota Home, a subsidiary of the car- STAFF Lead Editor environments and when using devices maker, built the Toyota Dream House Shani Murray with limited memory. Cho Kanji cur- PAPI, an intelligent house filled with T- [email protected] rently supports approximately 170,000 Engine boards. It’s part of the Nagoya Group Managing Editor characters, which can be used inside the Expo, which opened on 25 March of Crystal R. Shif application and in file names. this year. In an emergency, Toyota’s [email protected] PMC claims demand for its products Prius hybrid automobile can supply the Senior Editors is increasing rapidly. “Several thousand Toyota home with electricity. The Dale Strok, Dennis Taylor, and Linda World companies are using our T-Engine devel- house gives new meaning to Le Cor- opment kit,” says PMC’s sales manager busier’s famous exclamation that a Staff Editor Rita Scanlan Nobuyuki Kashiwa. “T-Engine is becom- dwelling is “a machine for living.” ing [the] de facto standard of developing Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastruc- Editorial Assistant Brooke Miner tools for ubiquitous computing devices ture, and Transport is spearheading the Magazine Assistant in Japan.” Kashiwa believes T-Engine’s testing of the UID Center’s Autonomous Hilda Hosillos open architecture and the security offered Movement Support Project. Electronic [email protected] by eTRON are key factors in the plat- tags embedded in pavement stones and Contributing Editors form’s growing popularity. street furniture will supply users with Anne Lear, Molly Mraz, Keri Schreiner, T-Engine also enjoys growing sup- location-specific information “anytime, and Joan Taylor port in other East Asian countries. For anywhere, to anyone.” In the cities of Design Director instance, Renesas Technology Corp., Kobe and Tsuwano, hundreds of elec- Toni Van Buskirk Nanyang Technological University, and tronic tags and road sensors have been Layout & Technical Illustrations the Singapore government cofounded embedded in the pavement, sidewalks, Carmen Flores-Garvey and Alex Torres Singapore’s T-Engine Application Devel- and street furniture, providing infor- Production Editor Monette Velasco opment Center (TEADEC), which provides mation to tourists about historical sites English and Chinese tutorials for T- and to wheelchair users about obstacles. Publisher Angela Burgess Engine development. TEADEC also sup- When entire cities are “tagged,” [email protected] plies low-cost training material to train- robots can be equipped with ucode read- Assistant Publisher ing centers in Thailand, Malaysia, and ers and make deliveries of food or med- Dick Price Vietnam. icine. The city of Fukuoka in southern Membership & Circulation Marketing Manager “The T-Engine platform is very easy Japan has created a “robot-friendly” Georgann Carter to use, and application [development] zone in the city center. It has adjusted the Business Development Manager can be done very quickly using standard streets and changed traffic rules to let Sandra Brown tools,” says TEADEC’s Kwek Chu-Lih. robot engineers test robots, and the pub- Advertising Coordinator “As long as it can obtain the support of lic’s reactions, in public spaces. Marian Anderson middleware developers it can become Whether T-Engine becomes a global the international platform for embed- standard remains to be seen. Given the Submissions: Access the IEEE Computer Society’s ded systems development, including potential market for ubiquitous com- Web-based system, Manuscript Central, at http:// ubiquitous computing.” puting technology, the Japanese tech- cs-ieee.manuscriptcentral.com/index.html. Be sure to select the right manuscript type when submitting. China’s Beijing University has estab- nology will no doubt meet with com- Articles must be original and should be approximately lished an embedded-systems course using petition. But Ken Sakamura has already 5,000 words long, preferably not exceeding 10 T-Engine boards, and the Chinese Acad- succeeded in giving the notion of ubiq- references. Visit www.computer.org/pervasive for editorial guidelines. emy of Science has ported its video com- uitous computing a new dimension. He pression technology AVS (a rival of notes that an electronic tag embedded in Editorial: Unless otherwise stated, bylined articles MPEG) to T-Engine. The Korea T-Engine a medicine container or in a pavement as well as products and services reflect the author’s or firm’s opinion; inclusion does not necessarily Center conducts educational activities to stone doesn’t need to know what it is or constitute endorsement by the IEEE Computer Society diffuse the T-Engine architecture and where it is. Its “intelligence” is in the or the IEEE. UID technologies in Korea, and Korean database and the rule sets it contains. programmers have developed a humanoid The potential for possible applications T-Engine robot. is limited only by the imagination.

APRIL–JUNE 2005

MOBILE AND UBIQUITOUS SYSTEMS