***EUSAI (Ambient Intelligence) 2004
By John Latta
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
November 9 – 10, 2004
Ambient Intelligence is a step beyond Ubiquitous Computing. There
is an explicit focus on individuals in an environment. As we look
across Wearable Computers and this event there is a shift taking
place. Tom Rodden, University of Nottingham, UK, put it bluntly -
for 40 years our thoughts have been dominated by the PC, keyboard
and mouse. This has actually been a diversion away from finding
out what “will be our every day relationship with computing.” One
of the most important changes is the social context and awareness
that permeates the use of computers in every day life. The shift
is profound: So far the individual has had to adapt to what the
computer could do for the person; now with ambient intelligence
the computer must adapt to the individual. These are implications
that are only becoming evident.
The Technical University of Eindhoven, where the conference is being held,
was showing an Electronic Paper Prototype with Visual Interaction with
Windows. This is based on a large tablet, 36”+ diagonal that can be
manipulated by a stylist or pen. Projected onto the surface are multiple
objects which represent applications. These window frames can be
manipulated with a small cursor box which is above the frame. The
impressive aspect is that the objects, i.e., the windows of applications
can be rotated just like a piece of paper. Even ordinary paper can be
placed on the surface and a corresponding virtual paper can be rotated with
these objects. The way that all of this works is that the objects are
projected onto the tablet surface and the detection of what is happening on
the surface is done by a camera which looks at the same surface. The
objects on the surface are actually applications windows which are mapped
as a texture on an OpenGL surface. Yes, this is not easy to explain without
pictures. This is one of the most effective emulations of a desktop surface
which uses computing windows we have seen.
EUSAI – Shaping the Future of How Computing is Used
This is the second European Symposium on Ambient Intelligence.
The last one was sponsored by Philips and this one by the
University of Technology, the Netherlands, also here in
Eindhoven. There is no coincidence that much of this is centered
here in Eindhoven, the headquarters of Philips. It has made a
major commitment to Ambient Intelligence. There are 100 at the
conference and most from Europe with a few from Asia. By every
indication we have collected, the Europeans are well ahead of
other parts of the world.
There are many definition of Ambient Intelligence and we offer
some of the components:
Computing devices are everywhere in one’s environment;
Mobility of the individual(s) is assumed and that they have
some type of electronic identification and/or other devices
on them; and
The environment is aware of the presence of the
individual(s), is context sensitive and provides something
for the individual(s).
This is quite broad but opens a new dimension on the relationship
of the individual with their environment.
This conference is exploring in multiple tracks: Ubiquitous
Computing, Context Awareness, Intelligence and Natural
Interaction. We would broadly describe the presentations as
- either dealing with the technical issues of creating the
environments or the human side of what these environments
mean, or
- how individuals participate in these event.
Equator – Making Ambient Intelligence Real
Tom Rodden, University of Nottingham, UK, is director of Equator.
The project is described as:
Equator is a six-year Interdisciplinary Research
Collaboration (IRC) supported by EPSRC that focuses on the
integration of physical and digital interaction. The IRC
brings together researchers from eight different
institutions and a variety of disciplines that address the
technical, social and design issues in the development of
new inter-relationships between the physical and digital.
A series of experience projects engage with different user
communities to develop new combinations of physical and
digital worlds, how explore these (possibly exploit) and
enhance the quality of everyday life.
A series of research challenges explore new classes of
devices that link the physical and the digital, research
into adaptive software architectures and new design and
evaluation methods that draw together approaches from social
science, cognitive science and art and design. Now in its
third year, it involves over 60 researchers, with a range of
expertise that encompasses computer science, psychology,
sociology, design and the arts.
Equator aims to forge a clearer understanding of what it
means to live in an age when digital and physical activities
not only coexist but also co-operate. This is the age we are
now entering, and it promises radical change in how we
communicate, interact, work and play - that is, how we live.
But fulfilling that promise requires more than new
technology. We need equally new ways of thinking about
technology, and thus also about ourselves.
What stood out in his presentation was the drive to take the
technology into the “wild.” That is, he feels that to make the
concept of ambient intelligence work it is essential to work with
individuals. As a result, he described ways in which the
technology has been used that were unforeseen.
His talk discussed five examples from Equator:
City
Can You See me now – game within a city
Ambient Wood – learning in the outdoor setting
Uncle Roy all Around You
Drift Table
City was a museum project to show the city of Glasgow, Scotland.
This mixes a physical visitor a museum with a VR Visitor and a
web visitor. This brought a deeper visit experience and the video
was interesting to see how the visitors interacted with others.
“Can you see me now” is an online game played in city streets.
The objective was to locate the individual in the city. This uses
GPS for position updates but there are errors due to masking.
This significantly enhances the value of the game play and shows
how sophisticated the players have become.
Ambient Wood is a children’s experience in the woods. It also
uses technology in a number of ways to allow for exploration of
the environment and biology. The woods were wired with WiFi.
Children could probe the physical world and hand held devices
were a part of this exploration.
An extension of the drift table, described at CHI, is the key
table. This is a surface where individuals can drop items as they
enter the house. The hypothesis is that the state of an
individual’s emotion is reflected on how hard they deposit items
on the table when entering the home. This is reflected in a
picture on the wall which rotates based on the action one takes
onto the key table. This picture frame had a dog in it. An
unforeseen consequence of this test in one family’s home is that
the family, and especially the mother, became very attached to
the dog in the picture, and the emotions they felt were expressed
in how the frame rotated.
After the presentation, the WAVE asked Tom why he did not show
“more serious” applications of the technology. Yes, they do have
such efforts and there are three under the Equator called digital
care. One deals with Agoraphobia. Tom described that the
involvement with health care as being an eye opener. One of the
major issues is – what if the treatment is successful. This is
not so easily dropped at the end of the experiment. As a result
the art department has had to develop an ethics policy on how it
will handle patients. In this case ambient intelligence is
similar to drug care in a testing situation.
www.equator.ac.uk/
Ambient Intelligence – Difficult Realities Surface
Ambient Intelligence is infrastructure associated with
individuals. By implication it is every where, it is sensitive to
presence and responsive. The WAVE saw some of the hard realities
rise to the surface: where will the power come from for all these
devices and what will it do for individuals?
Philips Research = Ambient Intelligence
No company is more committed to ambient intelligence than
Philips. Some of its writings made available at the conference
highlighted that focus and explained the position of the company.
“The ability to implement ubiquitous computing, a situation
where processing power is embedded into everything is
certain to arrive within the next ten to fifteen years. When
it does, Philips will be able to fully realize its vision of
ambient intelligence, using technology that is embedded into
the fabric of our surroundings to create an environment that
is sensitive and responsive to our presence and sympathetic
to our needs. In the long term, what ordinary people will
want from ambient intelligence is far less certain, but is
nevertheless a subject for intensive work in Philips
HomeLab, in the mean time, Philips Research is already
exploiting key characteristics of ambient intelligence to
develop product concepts that will allow us to experience
some of the benefits of much sooner.”
Key attributes include:
Context Awareness:
“One of the key characteristics of devices in an
Ambient Intelligence environment is that they must
know the context in which they are being used.”
Personalized:
There is a very high level of personalization
required “...and the ability to emanate a digital
aura that invites and enhances the opportunity for
new experiences are both key characteristics
Ambient Intelligence.”
Immersive:
“If the role of Ambient Intelligence is to make
the delivery and sharing of experiences much
easier, another role is to enhance the quality of
the experience.”
Adaptive:
Context awareness, personalization and immersion
are some of the important steps toward Ambient
Intelligence that are beginning to appear in
consumer products. The next major challenge for
Philips Research is to add the ability for
environments to become highly adaptive – “...a
characteristic that relates very much to how
people will interact with Ambient Intelligence.”
An important element in the Philips vision of Ambient
Intelligence is a connected world of which seamless
connectivity is very important. Philips sees that there are
two parts to this:
Worldwide Coverage of Communications:
Geographically, ubiquitous connectivity is already
Here, thanks to the worldwide proliferation of
cellular systems. In the cellular phone world, the
concept of ubiquitous connectivity extends far
beyond voice, e-mail and Internet browsing,
however. Anticipated convergence between mobile
phones and wireless local area networks (WLAN)
technology is expected to result in new
generations of mobiles with WLAN functionality.
Philips Research is actively developing integrated
multi-standard radio solutions that automatically
reconfigure themselves to the standard required.
Home-Centered Connectivity:
A cornerstone of Philips’ Ambient Intelligence
vision is home-centered ubiquitous connectivity,
which encompasses not only entertainment and
communications but also the proactive responses of
the environment itself to people.
“Ambient Intelligence promises a world where technology will
disappear below the level of our consciousness, leaving us
free to enjoy the experiences that it can delivery. Nobody,
however, expects that world to arrive tomorrow, or that we
will all rush out and buy ‘ambient intelligence in a box.’
When it does, the vision must materialize gradually building
on what is available today and growing with us a we become
more aware and more confident of what it has to offer.”
Conference - Super-distributed RFID Tag Infrastructure
The Institute of Pervasive Computing of ETH in Zurich Switzerland
described how it would be possible to use RFID tags on a mass
scale. Passive RFID tags can be deployed which are highly
redundant and over large areas or object surfaces. They call
their approach “super-distributed RFID tag infrastructure. SDRI.”
This allows for the discrete partitioning of the physical space.
In the case of a regular grid pattern it is possible to have
uniquely addressable cells and this can translate into a regular
occupancy grid. This in turn, can support robot navigation. Thus,
SDRI enables devices to interact with their environment. For
example, it is possible to have an object move on a floor which
has many such tags, and trace a virtual path on the floor.
“An SDRI can be regarded as a scalable shared medium with
(almost) unlimited, independent, and highly distributed physical
‘access points.’ Further, if RFID tags support read-write
operations, then they enable mobile devices to support a certain
amount of data directly into the physical tags themselves.”
One mobile robot was developed using Lego Mindstorms. This was
done to demonstrate the concept of an autonomous location-aware
vacuum cleaner.
Overall, an innovative piece of work.
Shaping the Ambience of Homes with Domestic Hypermedia
Marianne Petersen of the Center for Interactive Spaces, ISIS
Katrinebjerg, reported on how we are seeing an explosion of
domestic media from digital photos to home videos and more. She
examined surfaces at home, such as tables and book shelves and
categorized these. Home boards have information that is “one
click” away. Then this was examined in terms of digital
solutions. The analysis considered how both the physical spaces,
i.e., the surfaces in the home, could be merged with digital
media. The result was domestic hypermedia. This was termed –
infrastructure for home materials. A MediaTable was outlined
which became a collaborative and spatial organization of domestic
material. This was actually displayed as a table. Also shown was
a MediaWall. The talk was concluded with a next step that a
MediaTable and connected surfaces would be placed in a real home
for a 3 week trial.
Excellent analysis.
Conference Discussions
A number of issues came up in conference, mostly during the
questioning period. We summarize these:
How are these mobile or distributed devices going to be
powered?
Will consumers want what is being developed here?
This captures many of the thoughts we have had over the period of
the conference. Some of the concepts, such as the MediaTable and
the demonstrations in the Equator project, get close to making
sense, from a consumer perspective. In fact, Tom Rodden,
University of Nottingham said in his keynote that a number of
companies have expressed an interest in commercializing the drift
table. Yet, creating appealing products and profitable ones is
not a given.
WAVE Comments
This is the only conference dedicated to Ambient Intelligence and
thus a unique opportunity to evaluate the technology and status.
Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is a major step forward. Even if the
net result of the focus of Ambient Intelligence is transitory
before shifting to another technology, AmI causes institutions to
change their thinking about the role of technology and
individuals. This was very clear at EUSAI.
AmI is also about scale – the impacts of the technology are
everywhere when it seeks to help the individual. The result is
far reaching. The dimensions of AmI thus span Sociology,
Psychology, Physiology and Well Being. But, it does not stop
there. The technology also encompasses Philosophy, Evolution,
the Life Cycle, Environment and Adaptation
Ambient Intelligence or Ambient Life?
We suggest that Ambient Intelligence is misnamed; it should be
Ambient Life. The reasons are given above. The problem, as
reflected at EUSAI, is that there is still too much emphasis on
the computing or intelligence of the environments. Intelligence
is one step beyond IT and IT is not where the thinking should be.
Thus, Ambient Life, as we are calling this, is about making
technology with a higher purpose. It is a matter of thinking
about products. It is at the center of where we go beyond the PC.
Wave Issue 0503 1/21/05 Article 2-01