Single Value Devices

We live in a world of continuous information overflow, but the quality of information and communication is suffering. Single value devices contribute to the information and communication quality by fo- cussing on one explicit, relevant piece of information. The information is decoupled from a computer and represented in an object, integrates into daily life. However, most existing single value devices come from conceptual experiments or art and exist only as prototypes. In order to get to mature products and to design meaningful, effective and work- ing objects, an integral perspective on the design choices is necessary. Our contribution is a critical exploration of the design space of single value devices. In a survey we give an overview of existing examples. The characterizing design criteria for single value devices are elaborated in a taxonomy. Finally, we discuss several design choices that are specifically important for moving from prototypes to commercializable products

Law in an Era of \u27Smart\u27 Technology

Should law be technologically neutral, or should it evolve as human relationships with technology become more advanced? Susan Brenner analyzes the complex and evolving interactions between law and technology and provides a thorough and detailed account of the law in technology at the beginning of the 21st century. Brenner draws upon recent technological advances, evaluating how developing technologies may alter how humans interact with each other and with their environment. She analyzes the development of technology as shifting from one of use to one of interaction, and argues that this interchange needs us to reconceptualize our approach to legal rules, which were originally designed to prevent the misuse of older technologies. As technologies continue to develop over the next several decades, Brenner argues that the laws directed between human and technological relationships should remain neutral. She explains how older technologies rely on human implementation, but new smart technology will be completely automated. This will eventually lead to, as she explains, the ultimate progression in our relationship with technology: the fusion of human physiology and technology. Law in an Era of Smart Technology provides a detailed, historically grounded explanation as to why our traditional relationship with technology is evolving and why a corresponding shift in the law is imminent and necessary

Expanding the Information Fidelity of Calm Technology Devices Through Techniques of Information Visualization

This thesis explores the creation of ambient data visualisation devices that keep users informed via their use of colour and light to convey information. It is an exploration into how the principles of information visualisation can be applied to the design of “calm” devices in order to enhance their features as well as expand their information fidelity. This exploration builds on the concept of “calm technology”, coined by Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown of XEROX PARC (1996) which describes unobtrusive, informative technology. Calm technologies should exist mostly in the periphery, continuously relaying information in a non- intrusive manner. The research employs iterative prototyping and reflection to explore was to improve information delivery within calm technology. The project demonstrates several opportunities to enhance visual-based calm technology devices by incorporating principles of information visualisation in order to expand the information fidelity of these devices

La contextualisation en entreprise (mettre en avant utilisateurs et développeurs)

Les applications contextuelles doivent gérer un flux contenu de contexte selon une logique approprié. Les travaux de recherche en contextualisation se limitent à proposer des plateformes de développement proposant des mécanismes d adaptation prédéfinie. Cette thèse se propose d étende l état de l art en proposant des nouveaux concepts formant la fondation pour la création d application contextuelles en adoptant des principes de l ingénierie logicielle et une décomposition fonctionnelle. Aussi, cela permet l intégration de comportements contextualisés à des applications non initialement conçus pour cela. La thèse propose une autre manière centrée-contexte permettant de séparer la représentation du contexte de son interprétation, offrant encore plus de flexibilité à la gestion de contexte. Les propositions sont analysées aux lumières d étude de cas et de simulations. Le résultat de la thèse est l introduction de nouvelle approche de création d applications contextuelles qui met en avant le développeur mais aussi l utilisateurContext-aware applications must manage a continuous stream of context according to dedicated business logic. Research was limited on proposing frameworks and platforms that have predefined behavior toward applications. This thesis attempts to extend background works by proposing new concepts serving as foundation for a flexible approach for building context-aware applications. The thesis examines the state of the art of context-aware computing, then adopts well-established software design principles and a functional decomposition for designing a reference model for context management enabling seamless integration of context-awareness into applications. Also, the thesis studies the use of context in common applications and proposes a context-centric modeling approach which allows the creation of a graph-based representation where entities are connected to each other through links representing context. Furthermore, the context graph decouples the presentation and the semantics of context, leaving each application to manage the appropriate semantic for their context data. Case studies are conducted for the evaluation of the proposed system in terms of its support for the creation of applications enhanced with context-awareness. A simulation study is performed to analyze the performance properties of the proposed system. The result of this thesis is the introduction of a novel approach for supporting the creation of context-aware applications that supports the integration of context-awareness to existing applications. It empowers developers as well as users to participate in the creation process, thereby reducing usability issuesEVRY-INT (912282302) / SudocSudocFranceF

The Office: The impact of the digital revolution on the office practices of early career academics

This thesis is fundamentally about the digital revolution and its impact on the office practices of new academics. It explored the degree to which a group of early career academics were being influenced by ‘new ways of working’—a practice that is currently driving change in many organisations globally. The office activities of five millennial academics were monitored over a six-month period using digital still images to investigate space/place, continuous camera observations to investigate physical behaviour and computer usage logs to investigate visual behaviour. While the findings show the importance of the computer to daily work practice, and a degree of work practices extending beyond the office, the data revealed that the concept of the office, office practices and computer usage were more akin to traditional ways of working. This was a position reinforced by participants who, aware of the pace of technology and change, harboured a feeling of being left-behind. The focus on activity and the use of sensor-based data offered an opportunity to explore ‘new ways’ of undertaking higher education research. Rather than following the traditional perception-based research model, this study adopted activity as the unit of analysis. Digital sensors were employed to capture significant volumes of naturally occurring continuous data. The use of such methods in educational research is new, and for this reason, a central element of this thesis is the development of a preliminary blueprint for a new methodology focused on ‘precision research’. Finally, rather than academics being the drivers of change, it is argued that as a learning organisation, the university is responsible for addressing academic and professional progress in times of turbulent change, and that it is the institution that is best positioned to plan for and drive positive change. Universities that overlook or disregard these progressive, technological practices are unlikely to yield valuable knowledge or relevant knowledge workers. Like so many large commercial organisations already, universities too could be left-behind

Cyberbullying in educational context

Kustenmacher and Seiwert (2004) explain a man’s inclination to resort to technology in his interaction with the environment and society. Thus, the solution to the negative consequences of Cyberbullying in a technologically dominated society is represented by technology as part of the technological paradox (Tugui, 2009), in which man has a dual role, both slave and master, in the interaction with it. In this respect, it is noted that, notably after 2010, there have been many attempts to involve artificial intelligence (AI) to recognize, identify, limit or avoid the manifestation of aggressive behaviours of the CBB type. For an overview of the use of artificial intelligence in solving various problems related to CBB, we extracted works from the Scopus database that respond to the criterion of the existence of the words “cyberbullying” and “artificial intelligence” in the Title, Keywords and Abstract. These articles were the subject of the content analysis of the title and, subsequently, only those that are identified as a solution in the process of recognizing, identifying, limiting or avoiding the manifestation of CBB were kept in the following Table where we have these data synthesized and organized by years