3,506 research outputs found
Services surround you:physical-virtual linkage with contextual bookmarks
Our daily life is pervaded by digital information and devices, not least the common mobile phone. However, a seamless connection between our physical world, such as a movie trailer on a screen in the main rail station and its digital counterparts, such as an online ticket service, remains difficult. In this paper, we present contextual bookmarks that enable users to capture information of interest with a mobile camera phone. Depending on the user’s context, the snapshot is mapped to a digital service such as ordering tickets for a movie theater close by or a link to the upcoming movie’s Web page
Mobile support in CSCW applications and groupware development frameworks
Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is an established subset of the field of Human Computer Interaction that deals with the how people use computing technology to enhance group interaction and collaboration. Mobile CSCW has emerged as a result of the progression from personal desktop computing to the mobile device platforms that are ubiquitous today.
CSCW aims to not only connect people and facilitate communication through using computers; it aims to provide conceptual models coupled with technology to manage, mediate, and assist collaborative processes. Mobile CSCW research looks to fulfil these aims through the adoption of mobile technology and consideration for the mobile user. Facilitating collaboration using mobile devices brings new challenges. Some of these challenges are inherent to the nature of the device hardware, while others focus on the understanding of how to engineer software to maximize effectiveness for the end-users. This paper reviews seminal and state-of-the-art cooperative software applications and development frameworks, and their support for mobile devices
Non-personal Data Collection for Toy User Interfaces
Toy-user-interfaces (ToyUI) are computing devices or peripherals that leverage interactivity and connectivity with other devices to promote physical and social play. ToyUI products may collect both personal and non-personal data (NPD) on their users. We propose nine data patterns for NPD collection as part of ToyUI design based on the study of 297 ToyUI items from both the literature and industry. In addition, we introduce a printed circuit board (PCB) used for rapid prototyping that enabled NPD data collection concerning both objects and users by gathering non-personal identification, positioning system, and motion tracking. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our hardware architecture by embedding it into two design scenarios, namely, closed rules and open-ended rules solutions. The objectives here are to assist the ToyUI makers in creating more meaningful play experiences while ensuring the privacy of children’s and their parents’ data
Smart PIN: performance and cost-oriented context-aware personal information network
The next generation of networks will involve interconnection of heterogeneous individual
networks such as WPAN, WLAN, WMAN and Cellular network, adopting the IP as common infrastructural protocol and providing virtually always-connected network. Furthermore,
there are many devices which enable easy acquisition and storage of information as pictures, movies, emails, etc. Therefore, the information overload and divergent content’s
characteristics make it difficult for users to handle their data in manual way. Consequently, there is a need for personalised automatic services which would enable data exchange across heterogeneous network and devices. To support these personalised services, user centric approaches
for data delivery across the heterogeneous network are also required.
In this context, this thesis proposes Smart PIN - a novel performance and cost-oriented context-aware Personal Information Network. Smart PIN's architecture is detailed including its network, service and management components. Within the service component, two novel schemes for efficient delivery of context and content data are proposed:
Multimedia Data Replication Scheme (MDRS) and Quality-oriented Algorithm for Multiple-source Multimedia Delivery (QAMMD).
MDRS supports efficient data accessibility among distributed devices using data replication which is based on a utility function and a minimum data set. QAMMD employs a buffer underflow avoidance scheme for streaming, which achieves high multimedia quality without content adaptation to network conditions. Simulation models for MDRS and
QAMMD were built which are based on various heterogeneous network scenarios. Additionally a multiple-source streaming based on QAMMS was implemented as a prototype and tested in an emulated network environment. Comparative tests show that MDRS and QAMMD perform significantly better than other approaches
Semantic Brokering of Multimedia Contents for Smart Delivery of Ubiquitous Services in Pervasive Environments
With the proliferation of modern mobile devices having the capability to interact each other and with the environment in a transparent manner, there is an increase in the development of those applications that are specifically designed for pervasive and ubiquitous environments. Those applications are able to provide a service of interest for the user that depends on context information, such as the user's position, his preferences, the capability of the device and its available resources. Services have to respond in a rational way in many different situations choosing the actions with the best expected result by the user, so making environment not only more connected and efficient, but smarter. Here we present a semantic framework that provides the technology for the development of intelligent, context aware services and their delivery in pervasive and ubiquitous environments
Smart Photos
Recent technological leaps have been a great catalyst for changing how people interact with the world around us. Specifically, the field of Augmented Reality has led to many software and hardware advances that have formed a digital intermediary between humans and their environment. As of now, Augmented Reality is available to the select few with the means of obtaining Google Glass, Oculus Rifts, and other relatively expensive platforms. Be that as it may, the tech industry\u27s current goal has been integration of this technology into the public\u27s smartphones and everyday devices. One inhibitor of this goal is the difficulty of finding an Augmented Reality application whose usage could satisfy an everyday need or attraction. Augmented reality presents our world in a unique perspective that can be found nowhere else in the natural world. However, visual impact is weak without substance or meaning. The best technology is invisible, and what makes a good product is its ability to fill a void in a person\u27s life. The most important researchers in this field are those who have been augmenting the tasks that most would consider mundane, such as overlaying nutritional information directly onto a meal [4].
In the same vein, we hope to incorporate Augmented Reality into everyday life by unlocking the full potential of a technology often believed to have already have reached its peak. The humble photograph, a classic invention and unwavering enhancement to the human experience, captures moments in space and time and compresses them into a single permanent state. These two-dimensional assortments of pixels give us a physical representation of the memories we form in specific periods of our lives. We believe this representation can be further enhanced in what we like to call a Smart Photo. The idea behind a Smart Photo is to unlock the full potential in the way that people can interact with photographs. This same notion is explored in the field of Virtual Reality with inventions such as 3D movies, which provide a special appeal that ordinary 2D films cannot. The 3D technology places the viewer inside the film\u27s environment. We intend to marry this seemingly mutually exclusive dichotomy by processing 2D photos alongside their 3D counterparts
A framework for the design, prototyping and evaluation of mobile interfaces for domestic environments
The idea of the smart home has been discussed for over three decades, but it has yet to achieve mass-market adoption. This thesis asks the question Why is my home not smart?
It highlights four main areas that are barriers to adoption, and concentrates on a single one of these issues: usability. It presents an investigation that focuses on design,
prototyping and evaluation of mobile interfaces for domestic environments resulting in the development of a novel framework.
A smart home is the physical realisation of a ubiquitous computing system for domestic living. The research area offers numerous benefits to end-users such as convenience,
assistive living, energy saving and improved security and safety. However, these benefits have yet to become accessible due to a lack of usable smart home control
interfaces. This issue is considered a key reason for lack of adoption and is the focus for this thesis.
Within this thesis, a framework is introduced as a novel approach for the design, prototyping and evaluation of mobile interfaces for domestic environments. Included
within this framework are three components. Firstly, the Reconfigurable Multimedia Environment (RME), a physical evaluation and observation space for conducting user
centred research. Secondly, Simulated Interactive Devices (SID), a video-based development and control tool for simulating interactive devices commonly found within
a smart home. Thirdly, iProto, a tool that facilitates the production and rapid deployment of high fidelity prototypes for mobile touch screen devices. This framework is evaluated as a round-tripping toolchain for prototyping smart home control and found to be an efficient process for facilitating the design and evaluation of such interfaces
Multimodalities in Metadata: Gaia Gate
Metadata is information about objects. Existing metadata standards seldom describe details concerning an object’s context within an environment; this thesis proposes a new concept, external contextual metadata (ECM), examining metadata, digital photography, and mobile interface theory as context for a proposed multimodal framework of media that expresses the internal and external qualities of the digital object and how they might be employed in various use cases. The framework is binded to a digital image as a singular object. Information contained in these ‘images’ can then be processed by a renderer application to reinterpret the context that the image was captured, including non-visually. Two prototypes are developed through the process of designing a renderer for the new multimodal data framework: a proof-of-concept application and a demonstration of ‘figurative’ execution (titled ‘Gaia Gate’), followed by a critical design analysis of the resulting products
Feasibility and performance analysis of middleware support for a situated virtual-physical civic engagement platform
Abstract. With the prevalent ubiquitous computing technologies, it is possible to explore novel solutions for supporting civic engagement as a set of urban practices. One interesting urban practice is the soapbox, traditionally conceived as wooden structure, from where to hold impromptu speeches. For this thesis, a novel soapbox prototype with ubiquitous computing mediated technologies is introduced, with our focus on the feasibility and performance analysis of its middleware support, investigating how our middleware is able to meet the goals of a situated virtual-physical civic engagement platform. Based on our empirical evaluations, it is demonstrated that our prototype is effective to support civic engagement and serve purpose of continuously soapbox streaming
Advancement in infotainment system in automotive sector with vehicular cloud network and current state of art
The automotive industry has been incorporating various technological advancement on top-end versions of the vehicle order to improvise the degree of comfortability as well as enhancing the safer driving system. Infotainment system is one such pivotal system which not only makes the vehicle smart but also offers abundance of information as well as entertainment to the driver and passenger. The capability to offer extensive relay of service through infotainment system is highly dependent on vehicular adhoc network as well as back end support of cloud environment. However, it is know that such legacy system of vehicular adhoc network is also characterized by various problems associated with channel capacity, latency, heterogeneous network processing, and many more. Therefore, this paper offers a comprehensive insight to the research work being carried out towards leveraging the infotainment system in order to obtain the true picture of strength, limitation, and open end problems associated with infotainment system
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