Opportunities and obligations for physical computing systems

The recent confluence of embedded and real-time systems with wireless, sensor, and networking technologies is creating a nascent infrastructure for a technical, economic, and social revolution. Based on the seamless integration of computing with the physical world via sensors and actuators, this revolution will accrue many benefits. Potentially, its impact could be similar to that of the current Internet. We believe developers must focus on the physical, real-time, and embedded aspects of pervasive computing. We refer to this domain as physical computing systems. For pervasive computing to achieve its promise, developers must create not only high-level system software and application solutions, but also low-level embedded systems solutions. To better understand physical computing\u27s advantages, we consider three application areas: assisted living, emergency response systems for natural or man-made disasters, and protecting critical infrastructures at the national level

Mobile commerce business models and technologies towards success

Mobile commerce is any transaction with a monetary value that is conducted via a mobile telecommunications network. This thesis tries to examine the factors leading to the success of mobile commerce as well as factors that may hinder its success. This research is separated into five parts: In the first part of this thesis, an analysis of wired e-commerce businesses is made; followed by advantages of mobile commerce over wired e-commerce. In the second part of this thesis, new wireless business models that are expected to generate substantial revenue flows as well as some successful examples of these business models are discussed. In the third part of this thesis, advances in wireless technologies that will lead to the success of mobile commerce are discussed. In the fourth part of this thesis, competition strategies and revenue structure of mobile commerce are discussed. And finally, in the fifth part of this thesis, drawbacks of wireless technologies towards the success of mobile commerce as well as how they can be overcome are discussed. The research and the conclusion suggest that although wireless technologies and their related business models are fairly new, they are growing at rapid speed. These are incredible sources of revenue. Once the factors hindering their usability, reliability, development and deployment are overcome, mobile technologies show great potential as revenue generators for both existing and newly developing businesse

Tablet PCs in schools: Case study report: A report for Becta by the Open University

The publication provides an analysis of twelve case studies involving schools in England that were using Tablet PCs. The analysis is complemented by brief individual reports describing aspects of how each of these schools was using Tablet PCs

Reflections on research questions in mobile assisted language learning

Research questions are central to mobile assisted language learning (MALL) projects and studies, yet they have received little attention to date. Taking research questions as its central focus, this paper offers some reflections on the complexity of the broader field of mobile learning, on different kinds of research, on salient themes and challenges in mobile learning and MALL, and it suggests some research directions for the future. Since MALL research is interdisciplinary, and since research questions are an object of study in other fields of knowledge, the paper refers to sources from multiple disciplines to support a more comprehensive consideration of current and future research questions in MALL. The paper is fundamentally an invitation to a global conversation about research questions in MALL

Developing Bus Tracking System that predicts the arrival times of public buses at Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) bus stops.

This dissertation shows about the project details in developing a Bus Tracking System (BTS) by predicting the time arrival of a bus using simulation data. The main elements in this report consist of introduction, literature review, methodology and results and discussion. The project is developed by using research activities, findings analysis and developing prototype. All the basic elements in the system such as Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) System, Global Positioning System (GPS) and the Short Messaging Services (SMS) Server have been analyzed. Based on the research, these elements are discussed further to relate the usage with the system. This project is developed based on the advancement of Information Technology (IT) system today that has enabled people to have an intelligent transport system which assists them in traveling. Travel Information System (TIS) has been used widely in certain countries such as Singapore and United States of America (Stephanie Yap, 2003). Basically, the system works by locating and tracking any transportation using GPS technology installed in that transport. By collecting all the dataneeded such as speed and location, an algorithm can be developed to predict when the transport will reach a certain checkpoint. The combination usage of the algorithm, AVL, GPS and SMS server, the information regarding the time arrival of the transport can easily being retrieve by users. In this project, an algorithm will be developed to predict the amount of time needed for the incoming public bus to arrive, based on the current location of the bus and the current time. Public bus users, especially students in UTP will be able to know when the bus is coming by using their cell phones. The usage will allowthem to access the system that manipulates this algorithm. The scope of the project includes developing an algorithm, the research and analysis of GPS and the use of SMS. Basically, the methodology that has been chosen is the combination of waterfall and spiral methodology. The development of the BTS will hopefully help to increase bus ridership, improve accuracy, timeliness and availability of public buses at UTP

A Case study on the design process for mobilizing a web application

Mobilizing web applications is a current design problem facing software development teams. The majority of projects aimed at developing solutions for mobile devices have been focused on extending the functionality of existing Web applications. The solutions, being developed for personal digital assistants are scaled down versions of the existing Web application. This design solution has proved to be unusable. The usability failures are tied to not having a clear understanding of the user and task requirements. The Web interface seems to be getting in the way of designing an appropriate solution for personal digital assistants. Requirements analysis involves a wide range of activities aimed at eliciting a precise description of the functional, data and usability requirements of the system under consideration. There are many methods and techniques that are available to assist development teams in being able to analyze the underlying structures of a system. The issues with many of these techniques are that they focus on the user interface. These techniques hide the structure of the system behind the user interface details, making it easier to talk about menus, icons, and screen layout than about whether the structure supports the work. This thesis sets out to demonstrate the benefits of using the Contextual Design methodology as the framework for a front-end design process. Contextual design offers techniques that assist in moving the focus from the user interface to the underlying structure. A front-end design process will be defined, using contextual design; to extend the functionality of Rochester Institute of Technology\u27s web based course registration system to a Palm

The safe administration of medication within the electromagnetic scenarios of the Internet of Things (IoT): looking towards the future

This paper has focused on analyzing the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to prevent or reduce errors during therapeutic drug administration. The methodology used has included scientific literature and marketed appliances reviews and laboratory tests on radiant devices. The role of the patient has been analyzed, both in terms of compliance with the prescribed treatments and user of technical solutions designed for administering medication. In addition, it has taken into account, how a future characterized by multiple technologies designed to support our daily routines, including health care, might affect the current model of relationship between health professionals and patients. Particular attention has been given to safety risks of ICTs in environments characterized by concurrent electromagnetic emissions operating at different frequencies. Implications and new scenarios from Internet of Things or IoT, have been considered, in light of the approach taken jointly by the European Commission and the European Technology Platform on Intelligent Systems Integration – EPoSS, in their 2008 report Internet of Things in 2020: a roadmap for the future, and how the concept has evolved since then.Chapter 1. Adverse drug events. Chapter 2. ICTs in everyday life and healthcare. Chapter 3. the challenge of electromagnetic safety. Chapter 4. ICTs in health care and in the prevention of medication errors: IoT. Chapter 5. A more effective and safer alternative approach. Chapter 6. Technological proposal 7. Conclusions.N

Support for Ad-Hoc applications in ubiquitous computing

This thesis presents work within the area of ubiquitous computing, an area based on a vision of computers blending into the background. The work has been done within the EU project PalCom that introduces palpable computing. Palpable computing puts a new perspective on ubiquitous computing, by focusing on human understandability. The thesis goals are to allow for ad-hoc combinations of services and nonpreplanned interaction in ubiquitous computing networks. This is not possible with traditional technologies for network services, which are based on standardization of service interfaces at the domain level. In contrast to those, our approach is based on standardization at a generic level, and on self-describing services. We propose techniques for ad-hoc applications that allow users to inspect and combine services, and to specify their cooperation in assemblies. A key point is that the assembly is external to the services. That makes it possible to adapt to changes in one service, without rewriting the other coordinated services. A framework has been implemented for building services that can be combined into ad-hoc applications, and example scenarios have been tested on top of the framework. A browser tool has been built for discovering services, for interacting with them, and for combining them. Finally, discovery and communication protocols for palpable computing have been developed, that support ad-hoc applications

Wireless Technologies and the National Information Infrastructure

This report examines the role wireless technologies will play in the emerging National Information Infrastructure (NII) and identifies the challenges that policymakers, regulators, and wireless service providers will face as they begin to more closely integrate wireless systems with existing wireline networks. The report also discusses some of the technical and social implications of the widespread use of wireless technologies— paying particular attention to the profound changes that wireless systems may cause in patterns of mobility

Event and map content personalisation in a mobile and context-aware environment.

Effective methods for information access are of the greatest importance for our modern lives “ particularly with respect to handheld devices. Personalisation is one such method which models a users characteristics to deliver content more focused to the users needs. The emerging area of sophisticated mobile computing devices has started to inspire new forms of personalised systems that include aspects of the persons contextual environment. This thesis seeks to understand the role of personalisation and context, to evaluate the effectiveness of context for content personalisation and to investigate the event and map content domain for mobile usage. The work presented in this thesis has three parts: The first part is a user experiment on context that investigated the contextual attributes of time, location and interest, with respect to participants perception of their usefulness. Results show highly dynamic and interconnected effects of context on participants usefulness ratings. In the second part, these results were applied to create a predictive model of context that was related to attribution theory and then combined with an information retrieval score to create a weighted personalisation model. In the third part of this work, the personalisation model was applied in a mobile experiment. Participants solved situational search tasks using a (i) non-personalized and a (ii) personalized mobile information system, and rating entertainment events based on usefulness. Results showed that the personalised system delivered about 20% more useful content to the mobile user than the non-personalised system, with some indication for reduced search effort in terms of time and the amount of queries per task. The work presented provides evidence for the promising potential of context to facilitate personalised information delivery to users of mobile devices. Overall, it serves as an example of an investigation into the effectiveness of context from multiple angles and provides a potential link to some of the aspects of psychology as a potential source for a deeper understanding of contextual processes in humans