The Mundane Computer: Non-Technical Design Challenges Facing Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence

Interdisciplinary collaboration, to include those who are not natural scientists, engineers and computer scientists, is inherent in the idea of ubiquitous computing, as formulated by Mark Weiser in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, ubiquitous computing has remained largely a computer science and engineering concept, and its non-technical side remains relatively underdeveloped. The aim of the article is, first, to clarify the kind of interdisciplinary collaboration envisaged by Weiser. Second, the difficulties of understanding the everyday and weaving ubiquitous technologies into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it, as conceived by Weiser, are explored. The contributions of Anne Galloway, Paul Dourish and Philip Agre to creating an understanding of everyday life relevant to the development of ubiquitous computing are discussed, focusing on the notions of performative practice, embodied interaction and contextualisation. Third, it is argued that with the shift to the notion of ambient intelligence, the larger scale socio-economic and socio-political dimensions of context become more explicit, in contrast to the focus on the smaller scale anthropological study of social (mainly workplace) practices inherent in the concept of ubiquitous computing. This can be seen in the adoption of the concept of ambient intelligence within the European Union and in the focus on rebalancing (personal) privacy protection and (state) security in the wake of 11 September 2001. Fourth, the importance of adopting a futures-oriented approach to discussing the issues arising from the notions of ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence is stressed, while the difficulty of trying to achieve societal foresight is acknowledged

On sharing and synchronizing groupware calendars under android platform

(c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.Sharing a calendar of tasks and events is a cornerstone in collaborative group work. Indeed, the individual work of the members of the group as well as the group work as a whole need the calendar to guide their activity and to meet the deadlines, milestones, deliverables of a project, etc. Additionally the members of the group should be able to work both offline and online, which arises when members of the group use smartphones and can eventually run out of Internet connection from time to time, or simply want to develop some activities locally. In the former case, they should have access to the calendar locally, while in the later case they should access the calendar online, shared by all members of the group. In both cases they should be able to see eventually the same information, namely the local calendars of the members should be synchronized with the group calendar. For the case of smartphones under Android system, one solution could be using the Google calendar, however, that is not easily tailorable to collaborative group work. In this paper we present an analysis, design and implementation of group work calendar that meets several requirements such as 1) sharing among all of members of the group, 2) synchronization among local calendars of members and global group calendar, 3) conflict resolution through a voting system, 4) awareness of changes in the entries (tasks, members, events, etc.) of the calendar and 5) all these requirements under proper privacy, confidentiality and security mechanisms. Moreover, we extend the sharing of calendars among different groups, a situation which often arises in enterprises when different groups need to be aware of other projects' development, or, when some members participate in more than one project at the same time.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Are anonymity-seekers just like everybody else? An analysis of contributions to Wikipedia from Tor

User-generated content sites routinely block contributions from users of privacy-enhancing proxies like Tor because of a perception that proxies are a source of vandalism, spam, and abuse. Although these blocks might be effective, collateral damage in the form of unrealized valuable contributions from anonymity seekers is invisible. One of the largest and most important user-generated content sites, Wikipedia, has attempted to block contributions from Tor users since as early as 2005. We demonstrate that these blocks have been imperfect and that thousands of attempts to edit on Wikipedia through Tor have been successful. We draw upon several data sources and analytical techniques to measure and describe the history of Tor editing on Wikipedia over time and to compare contributions from Tor users to those from other groups of Wikipedia users. Our analysis suggests that although Tor users who slip through Wikipedia's ban contribute content that is more likely to be reverted and to revert others, their contributions are otherwise similar in quality to those from other unregistered participants and to the initial contributions of registered users.Comment: To appear in the IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy, May 202

APPLICATIONS AND PERCEIVED IMPACT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES IN NIGERIA

This paper expounds the application and perceived impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in academic libraries in Nigeria. Libraries especially in developing countries may become moribund in the 21 century unless they begin to harness new, smart and intelligent technologies for improved operations and service delivery. This research adopted a literature-based approach to x-ray the applications and perceived impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in academic libraries in Nigeria. Through a systematic analysis and review of literature, the study brought to limelight the current state of AI integration in academic libraries in Nigeria and its possible impact on library services, collections, users, professionals and general library operations and services. The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in academic libraries has the potential to revolutionize library operations and services. Some of the identifies AI tools include: Natural Language Recognition, Robotics, Big Data, Data Mining, Chatbot, Machine Learning, Pattern Recognition and Expert system. Findings from the study revealed that the application of AI in academic libraries have the potentials to increases productivity, improved customer satisfaction through personalization, easy availability and accessibility of information, easy collaboration and knowledge sharing, virtual assistance and chatbots, and ultimately increase overall operational effectiveness. This paper also explored some of the challenges associated with the application of AI technologies in academic libraries in Nigeria such as poor ICT skills and technical expertise, high initial costs of implementation, phobia for job displacement, epileptic power supply, poor maintenance culture, resistance to change, poor network connectivity, privacy and ethical implications, etc. To maximize the potential benefits of AI applications in academic libraries in Nigeria, it is crucial for these libraries to implement appropriate planning, guidelines and regulations on AI use as well as training and retraining of academic librarians to acquire the required ICT skills, knowledge and competence in order to adapt in the present digital and changing library environment

Student user preferences for features of next-generation OPACs: a case study of University of Sheffield international students

Purpose. The purpose of this study is to identity the features that international student users prefer for next generation OPACs. Design/ methodology/ approach. 16 international students of the University of Sheffield were interviewed in July 2008 to explore their preferences among potential features in next generation OPACs. A semi-structured interview schedule with images of mock-up screens was used. Findings. The results of the interviews were broadly consistent with previous studies. In general, students expect features in next generation OPACs should be save their time, easy to use and relevant to their search. This study found that recommender features and features that can provide better navigation of search results are desired by users. However, Web 2.0 features, such as RSS feeds and those features which involved user participation were among the most popular. Practical implications. This paper produces findings of relevance to any academic library seeking to implement a next-generation OPAC. Originality/value. There have been no previous published research studies of users’ preferences among possible features of next-generation OPACs