The NFC tag structure in AmI Environment

The N ear Field Communications (NFC) enabled mobile phones are excellent devices to obtain services whit minimal effort: touching interaction. We propose the implementation of an Ambient Intelligence Environment with the single use of NFC technology (AmIE - NFC), which was developed in an environment with already existing computer infrastructure. In this environment, services from devices are controlled or requested simply by touching. We put a tag - NFC on each element or device. This work explains the tag - NFC structure to implement an AmIE - NFC and information flow when a user requests a service

A Bayesian strategy to enhance the performance of indoor localization systems

This work describes the probabilistic modelling af a Bayesian-based mechanism to improve location estimates of an already deployed location system by fusing its outputs with low-cost binary sensors. This mechanism takes advantege of the localization captabilities of different technologies usually present in smart environments deployments. The performance of the proposed algorithm over a real sensor deployment is evaluated using simulated and real experimental data

The survey on Near Field Communication

PubMed ID: 26057043Near Field Communication (NFC) is an emerging short-range wireless communication technology that offers great and varied promise in services such as payment, ticketing, gaming, crowd sourcing, voting, navigation, and many others. NFC technology enables the integration of services from a wide range of applications into one single smartphone. NFC technology has emerged recently, and consequently not much academic data are available yet, although the number of academic research studies carried out in the past two years has already surpassed the total number of the prior works combined. This paper presents the concept of NFC technology in a holistic approach from different perspectives, including hardware improvement and optimization, communication essentials and standards, applications, secure elements, privacy and security, usability analysis, and ecosystem and business issues. Further research opportunities in terms of the academic and business points of view are also explored and discussed at the end of each section. This comprehensive survey will be a valuable guide for researchers and academicians, as well as for business in the NFC technology and ecosystem.Publisher's Versio

Physical Selection in Ubiquitous Computing

Jokapaikan tietotekniikassa (ubiquitous computing) tietotekniset laitteet sulautuvat fyysiseen ympäristöön siten että niiden käyttäjät voivat olla yhtä aikaa vuorovaikutuksessa näiden laitteiden kanssa ja toimia fyysisessä ympäristössään. Laitteet ovat yhteydessä toisiinsa, ne ovat eri kokoisia ja niillä on erilaisia syöttö- ja tulostusmahdollisuuksia tarkoituksestaan riippuen. Nämä jokapaikan tietotekniikan ominaisuudet luovat tarpeen vuorovaikutustavoille, jotka eroavat huomattavasti tavanomaisten työpöytätietokoneiden vuorovaikutustavoista. Fyysinen valinta (physical selection) on jokapaikan tietotekniikan vuorovaikutustehtävä, jota käytetään kertomaan käyttäjän kannettavalle päätelaitteelle minkä fyysisen esineen kanssa käyttäjä haluaa olla vuorovaikutuksessa. Fyysinen valinta perustuu tunnisteisiin (tag), jotka yksilöivät fyysiset esineet tai sisältävät fyysisen hyperlinkin digitaalisessa muodossa olevaan tietoon, joka liittyy esineeseen, johon kyseinen tunniste on liitetty. Käyttäjä valitsee fyysisen hyperlinkin koskettamalla, osoittamalla tai skannaamalla tunnistetta sopivalla lukulaitteella varustetulla päätelaitteellaan. Fyysinen valinta voidaan toteuttaa erilaisilla teknologioilla, kuten sähköisesti luettavilla tunnisteilla ja niiden lukijoilla, infrapunalähettimillä sekä optisesti luettavilla tunnisteilla ja matkapuhelinten kameroilla. Tässä väitöskirjassa analysoidaan fyysistä valintaa vuorovaikutustehtävänä ja toteutusteknisestä näkökulmasta sekä esitellään eri valintatavat ­ kosketus, osoitus ja skannaus. Koskeusta ja osoitusta on tutkittu toteuttamalla prototyyppi ja tutkimalla sen avulla valintatapoja kokeellisesti. Tämän väitöskirjan tuloksiin kuuluu fyysisen valinnan analysointi jokapaikan tietotekniikan kontekstissa, ehdotuksia fyysisten hyperlinkkien visualisoinnista sekä fyysisessä ympäristössä että päätelaitteessa, ja käyttäjävaatimuksia fyysiselle valinnalle osana jokapaikan tietotekniikan arkkitehtuuria.In ubiquitous computing, the computing devices are embedded into the physical environment so that the users can interact with the devices at the same time as they interact with the physical environment. The various devices are connected to each other, and have various sizes and input and output capabilities depending on their purpose. These features of ubiquitous computing create a need for interaction methods that are radically different from the desktop computer interactions. Physical selection is an interaction task for ubiquitous computing and it is used to tell the user s mobile terminal which physical object the user wants to interact with. It is based on tags that identify physical objects or store a physical hyperlink to digital information related to the object the tag is attached to. The user selects the physical hyperlink by touching, pointing or scanning the tag with the mobile terminal that is equipped with an appropriate reader. Physical selection has been implemented with various technologies, such as radio-frequency tags and readers, infrared transceivers, and optically readable tags and mobile phone cameras. In this dissertation, physical selection is analysed as a user interaction task, and from the implementation viewpoint. Different selection methods ­ touching, pointing and scanning ­ are presented. Touching and pointing have been studied by implementing a prototype and conducting user experiments with it. The contributions of this dissertation include an analysis of physical selection in the ubiquitous computing context, suggestions for visualising the physical hyperlinks in both the physical environment and in the mobile terminal, and user requirements for physical selection as a part of an ambient intelligence architecture

NFC based remote control of services for interactive spaces

Ubiquitous computing (one person, many computers) is the third era in the history of computing. It follows the mainframe era (many people, one computer) and the PC era (one person, one computer). Ubiquitous computing empowers people to communicate with services by interacting with their surroundings. Most of these so called smart environments contain sensors sensing users’ actions and try to predict the users’ intentions and necessities based on sensor data. The main drawback of this approach is that the system might perform unexpected or unwanted actions, making the user feel out of control. In this master thesis we propose a different procedure based on Interactive Spaces: instead of predicting users’ intentions based on sensor data, the system reacts to users’ explicit predefined actions. To that end, we present REACHeS, a server platform which enables communication among services, resources and users located in the same environment. With REACHeS, a user controls services and resources by interacting with everyday life objects and using a mobile phone as a mediator between himself/herself, the system and the environment. REACHeS’ interfaces with a user are built upon NFC (Near Field Communication) technology. NFC tags are attached to objects in the environment. A tag stores commands that are sent to services when a user touches the tag with his/her NFC enabled device. The prototypes and usability tests presented in this thesis show the great potential of NFC to build such user interfaces