VR/Urban: spread.gun - design process and challenges in developing a shared encounter for media façades

Designing novel interaction concepts for urban environments is not only a technical challenge in terms of scale, safety, portability and deployment, but also a challenge of designing for social configurations and spatial settings. To outline what it takes to create a consistent and interactive experience in urban space, we describe the concept and multidisciplinary design process of VR/Urban's media intervention tool called Spread.gun, which was created for the Media Façade Festival 2008 in Berlin. Main design aims were the anticipation of urban space, situational system configuration and embodied interaction. This case study also reflects on the specific technical, organizational and infrastructural challenges encountered when developing media façade installations

From Sensor to Observation Web with Environmental Enablers in the Future Internet

This paper outlines the grand challenges in global sustainability research and the objectives of the FP7 Future Internet PPP program within the Digital Agenda for Europe. Large user communities are generating significant amounts of valuable environmental observations at local and regional scales using the devices and services of the Future Internet. These communities’ environmental observations represent a wealth of information which is currently hardly used or used only in isolation and therefore in need of integration with other information sources. Indeed, this very integration will lead to a paradigm shift from a mere Sensor Web to an Observation Web with semantically enriched content emanating from sensors, environmental simulations and citizens. The paper also describes the research challenges to realize the Observation Web and the associated environmental enablers for the Future Internet. Such an environmental enabler could for instance be an electronic sensing device, a web-service application, or even a social networking group affording or facilitating the capability of the Future Internet applications to consume, produce, and use environmental observations in cross-domain applications. The term ?envirofied? Future Internet is coined to describe this overall target that forms a cornerstone of work in the Environmental Usage Area within the Future Internet PPP program. Relevant trends described in the paper are the usage of ubiquitous sensors (anywhere), the provision and generation of information by citizens, and the convergence of real and virtual realities to convey understanding of environmental observations. The paper addresses the technical challenges in the Environmental Usage Area and the need for designing multi-style service oriented architecture. Key topics are the mapping of requirements to capabilities, providing scalability and robustness with implementing context aware information retrieval. Another essential research topic is handling data fusion and model based computation, and the related propagation of information uncertainty. Approaches to security, standardization and harmonization, all essential for sustainable solutions, are summarized from the perspective of the Environmental Usage Area. The paper concludes with an overview of emerging, high impact applications in the environmental areas concerning land ecosystems (biodiversity), air quality (atmospheric conditions) and water ecosystems (marine asset management)

Using virtual worlds as collaborative environments for innovation and design: lessons learned and observations from case studies in architectural projects

In this paper we discuss observations and lessons learned in conducting architectural design projects in virtual worlds. By integrating a community of users in virtual worlds into a collaborative architectural design process, organisations can tap the community's creativity and intelligence through immersive technology. The paper provides an overview of the latest advances of information and communication technologies in immersive virtual environments and discusses some of the observations and lessons learned which should be taken into account in developing collaboration models for such activities. Here we propose four modes of collaboration, based on the choices for degree of openness and governance structure, which are illustrated by four case studies

Security Implications of Fog Computing on the Internet of Things

Recently, the use of IoT devices and sensors has been rapidly increased which also caused data generation (information and logs), bandwidth usage, and related phenomena to be increased. To our best knowledge, a standard definition for the integration of fog computing with IoT is emerging now. This integration will bring many opportunities for the researchers, especially while building cyber-security related solutions. In this study, we surveyed about the integration of fog computing with IoT and its implications. Our goal was to find out and emphasize problems, specifically security related problems that arise with the employment of fog computing by IoT. According to our findings, although this integration seems to be non-trivial and complicated, it has more benefits than the implications.Comment: 5 pages, conference paper, to appear in Proceedings of the ICCE 2019, IEEE 37th International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE), Jan 11- 13, 2019, Las Vegas, NV, US

Sense-making of consumer wellbeing in information technology-enabled services from a relational ontology position

Information technology (IT) built into products and services have become the key drivers for service innovation. How information technology-enabled services (ITESs) affect consumer wellbeing has increasingly become a concern to service scholars. In response to this, transformative service research (TSR) has emerged as a new stream in service research. This paper investigates consumer wellbeing derived from the consumption of ITESs in consumers’ daily lives. A mixed-method approach was employed in our study, including self-reflective reports, in-depth interviews and visual artistic methods. We demonstrated that a relational ontology, drawing on the ‘focal things’ concept (Borgmann, 1984) and sociomateriality (Orlikowski, 2009), could be used as a lens for us to understand consumer wellbeing in ITESs. We used four vignettes to demonstrate how relational ontology can enhance our understanding of consumer wellbeing in ITESs. Theoretically, this paper contributes to TSR by proposing and demonstrating the need to shift or at least extend the extant predominant technology ontology in marketing literature to make sense of consumer experiences and wellbeing in ITESs. In practice, this research encourages ITESs designers to emphasise the relational entanglement of technology with consumer routine practices in their service innovations for the purposes of consumer wellbeing

FOTE 2008 Conference Report

A report prepared by JA.Net and ULCC about the Future of Technology in Education (FOTE 2008) conference, Imperial College, 3rd October 2008. It covers the main speakers, themes and presentations: Cloud Computing, Second Life, Portability, Personalisation, Shared Services, Campus of the Future, Mobile Technology, Creativity and Media Production, Social Collaboration Tools for Staff and Students

STREAM Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp 1-19. April-June 2003

CONTENTS: Livelihoods and languages: a SPARK-STREAM learning and communications process, by Kath Copley and William Savage. Towards broader contextual understandings of livelihoods, by Elizabeth M. Gonzales, Nguyen Song Ha, Rubu Mukherjee, Nilkanth Pokhrel and Sem Viryak. Using tools to build shared understandings, using a sustainable livelihoods framework to learn, by Nuchjaree Langkulsane. Learning about rattan as a livelihood, by Mariel de Jesus and Christine Bantug. Meanings of “community-managed area,” by Arif Aliadi. Lessons learnt about processes for learning and communicating, by Graham Haylor and Ronet Santos

Transforming Energy Networks via Peer to Peer Energy Trading: Potential of Game Theoretic Approaches

Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading has emerged as a next-generation energy management mechanism for the smart grid that enables each prosumer of the network to participate in energy trading with one another and the grid. This poses a significant challenge in terms of modeling the decision-making process of each participant with conflicting interest and motivating prosumers to participate in energy trading and to cooperate, if necessary, for achieving different energy management goals. Therefore, such decision-making process needs to be built on solid mathematical and signal processing tools that can ensure an efficient operation of the smart grid. This paper provides an overview of the use of game theoretic approaches for P2P energy trading as a feasible and effective means of energy management. As such, we discuss various games and auction theoretic approaches by following a systematic classification to provide information on the importance of game theory for smart energy research. Then, the paper focuses on the P2P energy trading describing its key features and giving an introduction to an existing P2P testbed. Further, the paper zooms into the detail of some specific game and auction theoretic models that have recently been used in P2P energy trading and discusses some important finding of these schemes.Comment: 38 pages, single column, double spac

Options for Radical Reforms to Pension Systems: Chilean and Swedish Models Compared

Pension systems are under stress in the whole world. Demographic tendencies, informal labour markets, and distributive designs –inter alia-, coupled with the rigidity of the legislation, and implied financial imbalances, social debate and –sometimes-, reforms. These could be classified into two main categories: parametric and radical reforms. Two models have features to be classified as radical pension reforms in the last decades: Chilean (or AFP) and Swedish (or NDC) models. The central aim of this essay is to compare both radical reforms, at the level of “ideal types”. Doing that, some questions are answered, namely: In what feature do they have differences? Which are the incentives they set to human behaviour in order to meet the goals of the design? Are the models truly different? Which problems do they address and which to they set aside? Moreover, which problems remain unsolved, and what troubles do they add? Here, the intention is to concentrate in the technical aspects of the design intended to solve financial problems of the systems, trying to show the relevant trade offs.Pension systems; AFJP

Next Generation User Skills

The world is awash with statistics on the impact of the web on 21st century living, learning and working. They are accompanied by the pronouncements and predictions of experts from every camp, from those heralding a new brave new world of co-creation and choice, to warnings from the dark side in terms of ethics and educational standards, tempered by increasing recognition that ‘we’ may no longer be in control of such matters. Meanwhile, surveys report that around 80% of businesses have invested in IT and 60% have websites. Whilst the extent and value of adoption differs significantly across businesses and sectors, the foundations for new ways of working and doing business are broadly in place, with older and static businesses typifying the laggards. It would not be unsafe to project that, by 2013, even more people will be required to use ICT in the workplace and in their everyday lives, increasingly involving online communication and web-based applications. This represents a scenario to which those responsible for developing curricula and awards must respond – in the primary and secondary phases, vocational and applied learning, work based and adult community provision and higher education. To ensure the relevance of and to influence the ongoing enhancement of user ICT provision and the associated awards, Digital 2020 and the Scottish Qualifications Authority jointly commissioned Sero Consulting to develop a vision for ICT user skills in 2013 – ‘Next Generation User Skills’ – taking account of: • Skills that all employers will need, which they may not currently recognise. • Skills that people (especially young people) will already have, but which may not be accredited. • Essential skills for living and learning in a digital age. This paper is drawn from the resulting public report, ‘Next Generation User Skills – Working, Learning & Living Online in 2013’ (September 2008), which provides: • An overview of the current ICT user skills landscape. • A model representing digital activities and competencies that might constitute the ‘Next Generation User Skillscape’. • A mapping of that activity space onto tools and awards, with a gap analysis identifying weaknesses in provision. • An overview of the recommendations to the report sponsors