An internet of old things as an augmented memory system

The interdisciplinary Tales of Things and electronic Memory (TOTeM) project investigates new contexts for augmenting things with stories in the emerging culture of the Internet of Things (IoT). Tales of Things is a tagging system which, based on two-dimensional barcodes (also called Quick Response or QR codes) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, enables the capturing and sharing of object stories and the physical linking to objects via read and writable tags. Within the context of our study, it has functioned as a technology probe which we employed with the aim to stimulate discussion and identify desire lines that point to novel design opportunities for the engagement with personal and social memories linked to everyday objects. In this paper, we discuss results from fieldwork with different community groups in the course of which seemingly any object could form the basis of a meaningful story and act as entry point into rich inherent 'networks of meaning'. Such networks of meaning are often solely accessible for the owner of an object and are at risk of getting lost as time goes by. We discuss the different discourses that are inherent in these object stories and provide avenues for making these memories and meaning networks accessible and shareable. This paper critically reflects on Tales of Things as an example of an augmented memory system and discusses possible wider implications for the design of related systems. © 2011 Springer-Verlag London Limited

What do people want from their lifelogs?

The practice of lifelogging potentially consists of automatically capturing and storing a digital record of every piece of information that a person (lifelogger) encounters in their daily experiences. Lifelogging has become an increasingly popular area of research in recent years. Most current lifeloggiing research focuses on techniques for data capture or processing. Current applications of lifelogging technology are usually driven by new technology inventions, creative ideas of researchers, or the special needs of a particular user group, e.g. individuals with memory impairment. To the best of our knowledge, little work has explored potential lifelogs applications from the perspective of the desires of the general public. One of the difficulties of carrying out such a study is the balancing of the information given to the subject regarding lifelog technology to enable them to generate realistic ideas without limiting or directing their imaginations by providing too much specific information. We report a study in which we take a progressive approach where we introduce lifelogging in three stages, and collect the ideas and opinions of a volunteer group of general public participants on techniques for lifelog capture, and applications and functionality

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Re-composing the digital present

This paper investigates the temporality that is produced in some recent and historical examples of media art. In exploring works by Janet Cardiff, Dennis Del Favero, and Omer Fast, I use the philosophy of Michel Serres and Gilles Deleuze to understand the convergence of temporalities that are composed in the digital present, as one moment in time overlays another moment. Developing Serres' concept of multi-temporality and Deleuze's philosophy of time and memory into a means to understand the non-linear time presented in these works, I argue that the different compositional strategies enacted by these artists provide the aesthetic grounding to experience “temporal thickness.” From here I investigate the interactive digital artworks Frames by Grahame Weinbren and Can You See Me Now? by the artist group Blast Theory. In this investigation, I understand interaction with technology, and the way that it shapes our sensory and processual experience, as a specifically temporal and temporalizing transaction, where human movements in the present are overlayed by technological processes

Enriched elderly virtual profiles by means of a multidimensional integrated assessment platform

The pressure over Healthcare systems is increasing in most developed countries. The generalized aging of the population is one of the main causes. This situation is even worse in underdeveloped, sparsely populated regions like Extremadura in Spain or Alentejo in Portugal. The authors propose to use the Situational-Context, a technique to seamlessly adapt Internet of Things systems to the needs and preferences of their users, for virtually modeling the elderly. These models could be used to enhance the elderly experience when using those kind of systems without raising the need for technical skills or the costs of implementing such systems by the regional healthcare systems. In this paper, the integration of a multidimensional integrated assessment platform with such virtual profiles is presented. The assessment platform provides and additional source of information for the virtual profiles that is used to better adapt existing systems to the elders needs

Intergenerational interpretation of the Internet of Things

This report investigates how different generations within a household interpret individual members’ data generated by the Internet of Things (IoT). Adopting a mixed methods approach, we are interested in interpretations of the IoT by teenagers, their parents and grandparents, and how they understand and interact with the kinds of data that might be generated by IoT devices. The first part of this document is a technical review that outlines the key existing and envisaged technologies that make up the IoT. It explores the definition and scope of the Internet of Things. Hardware, networking, intelligent objects and Human-Computer Interaction implications are all discussed in detail. The second section focuses on the human perspective, looking at psychological and sociological issues relating to the interpretation of information generated by the IoT. Areas such as privacy, data ambiguity, ageism, and confirmation bias are explored. The third section brings both aspects together, examining how technical and social aspects of the IoT interact in four specific application domains: energy monitoring, groceries and shopping, physical gaming, and sharing experiences. This section also presents three household scenarios developed to communicate and explore the complexities of integrating IoT technologies into family life. The final section draws together all the findings and suggests future research