Display-centred applications in ubiquitous computing

Public displays can play an important enabling role in ubiquitous computing environments. This paper describes an on-going work for a multipurpose, multi-display infrastructure, designed to address the requirements of display-centred applications in ubiquitous computing environments. The system provides an infrastructure in which situated displays can act as portals to the physical space, allowing ubicomp applications to support their association with the physical world by providing them with display services and situationspecific user input and context information

Human-computer interaction in ubiquitous computing environments

Purpose &ndash; The purpose of this paper is to explore characteristics of human-computer interaction when the human body and its movements become input for interaction and interface control in pervasive computing settings. Design/methodology/approach &ndash; The paper quantifies the performance of human movement based on Fitt\u27s Law and discusses some of the human factors and technical considerations that arise in trying to use human body movements as an input medium. Findings &ndash; The paper finds that new interaction technologies utilising human movements may provide more flexible, naturalistic interfaces and support the ubiquitous or pervasive computing paradigm. Practical implications &ndash; In pervasive computing environments the challenge is to create intuitive and user-friendly interfaces. Application domains that may utilize human body movements as input are surveyed here and the paper addresses issues such as culture, privacy, security and ethics raised by movement of a user\u27s body-based interaction styles. Originality/value &ndash; The paper describes the utilization of human body movements as input for interaction and interface control in pervasive computing settings. <br /

Display media para eventos

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia e Gestão de Sistemas de InformaçãoNuma sociedade digital, os eventos sociais e profissionais são cada vez mais relevantes enquanto momentos privilegiados de descoberta, partilha e socialização. De um modo central, compreende-se que o aspeto imprescindível nestes ambientes é a partilha e comunicação da informação no sentido de suscitar o sucesso da articulação entre o propósito do evento e os seus participantes. Independentemente dos muitos meios de partilha de informação que hoje existem, os ecrãs digitais destacam-se como um meio excecional na comunicação, precisamente pela forma única como podem proporcionar convergência e partilha de experiências. Os eventos são primórdios de acontecimentos planeados que naturalmente necessitam de gestão, interação, monotorização, gerir quadros de análise, e reflexão no âmbito em poder comunicar com os participantes, obtendo reações e sentimentos, elaborar formas de partilha e divulgação, entre outros. Todos estes fatores envolvidos num evento são por sua vez mecanismos de processamento de informação. Esta rede de fluxo de informação é então o estudo central dos Display Media para eventos, tratando-se em entender, identificar e transmitir que tecnologias existentes e formas de utilização destes fluxos de informação que poderão promover os ecrãs digitais e consequentemente acrescer a qualidade no ambiente, na socialização e na comunicação.In digital society, the social and professional events are more and more relevant as privileged moments of discovery, sharing and socialization. In a central mode, it is understandable that the indispensable aspect of this environments is the sharing and the communication of information in the way to provide success of the articulation between the events goals and the attendees. Apart from the many means of information sharing that exist today, the display screens stand out as exceptional in terms of communication, precisely because of the unique way in which they can provide convergence and sharing of experiences. The events are primordial of planned occurrences that naturally require management, interaction, monitoring, managing analytical frameworks, and reflection in the scope to be able to communicate with participants, getting reactions and feelings, developing forms of sharing and dissemination, etc. All these factors involved in an event are so information processing mechanisms. This information flow is then, the focus of study of display screens for events, where aims to understand, identify and report those technologies and ways of using these information flows and furthermore, rising the importance of digital displays and consequently increase the quality in the environment, in socialization and communication in the events

UBIDEV: a homogeneous service framework for pervasive computing environments

This dissertation studies the heterogeneity problem of pervasive computing system from the viewpoint of an infrastructure aiming to provide a service-oriented application model. From Distributed System passing through mobile computing, pervasive computing is presented as a step forward in ubiquitous availability of services and proliferation of interacting autonomous entities. To better understand the problems related to the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of pervasive computing environments, we need to analyze the structure of a pervasive computing system from its physical and service dimension. The physical dimension describes the physical environment together wit the technology infrastructure that characterizes the interactions and the relations within the environment; the service dimension represents the services (being them software or not) the environment is able to provide [Nor99]. To better separate the constrains and the functionalities of a pervasive computing system, this dissertation classifies it in terms of resources, context, classification, services, coordination and application. UBIDEV, as the key result of this dissertation, introduces a unified model helping the design and the implementation of applications for heterogeneous and dynamic environments. This model is composed of the following concepts: • Resource: all elements of the environment that are manipulated by the application, they are the atomic abstraction unit of the model. • Context: all information coming from the environment that is used by the application to adapts its behavior. Context contains resources and services and defines their role in the application. • Classification: the environment is classified according to the application ontology in order to ground the generic conceptual model of the application to the specific environment. It defines the basic semantic level of interoperability. • Service: the functionalities supported by the system; each service manipulates one or more resources. Applications are defined as a coordination and adaptation of services. • Coordination: all aspects related to service composition and execution as well as the use of the contextual information are captured by the coordination concept. • Application Ontology: represents the viewpoint of the application on the specific context; it defines the high level semantic of resources, services and context. Applying the design paradigm proposed by UBIDEV, allows to describe applications according to a Service Oriented Architecture[Bie02], and to focus on application functionalities rather than their relations with the physical devices. Keywords: pervasive computing, homogenous environment, service-oriented, heterogeneity problem, coordination model, context model, resource management, service management, application interfaces, ontology, semantic services, interaction logic, description logic.Questa dissertazione studia il problema della eterogeneit`a nei sistemi pervasivi proponendo una infrastruttura basata su un modello orientato ai servizi. I sistemi pervasivi sono presentati come un’evoluzione naturale dei sistemi distribuiti, passando attraverso mobile computing, grazie ad una disponibilit`a ubiqua di servizi (sempre, ovunque ed in qualunque modo) e ad loro e con l’ambiente stesso. Al fine di meglio comprendere i problemi legati allintrinseca eterogeneit`a dei sistemi pervasivi, dobbiamo prima descrivere la struttura fondamentale di questi sistemi classificandoli attraverso la loro dimensione fisica e quella dei loro servizi. La dimensione fisica descrive l’ambiente fisico e tutti i dispositivi che fanno parte del contesto della applicazione. La dimensione dei servizi descrive le funzionalit`a (siano esse software o no) che l’ambiente `e in grado di fornire [Nor99]. I sistemi pervasivi vengono cos`ı classificati attraverso una metrica pi `u formale del tipo risorse, contesto, servizi, coordinazione ed applicazione. UBIDEV, come risultato di questa dissertazione, introduce un modello uniforme per la descrizione e lo sviluppo di applicazioni in ambienti dinamici ed eterogenei. Il modello `e composto dai seguenti concetti di base: • Risorse: gli elementi dell’ambiente fisico che fanno parte del modello dellapplicazione. Questi rappresentano l’unit`a di astrazione atomica di tutto il modello UBIDEV. • Contesto: le informazioni sullo stato dell’ambiente che il sistema utilizza per adattare il comportamento dell’applicazione. Il contesto include informazioni legate alle risorse, ai servizi ed alle relazioni che li legano. • Classificazione: l’ambiente viene classificato sulla base di una ontologia che rappresenta il punto di accordo a cui tutti i moduli di sistema fanno riferimento. Questa classificazione rappresenta il modello concettuale dell’applicazione che si riflette sull’intero ambiente. Si definisce cos`ı la semantica di base per tutto il sistema. • Servizi: le funzionalit`a che il sistema `e in grado di fornire; ogni servizio `e descritto in termini di trasformazione di una o pi `u risorse. Le applicazioni sono cos`ı definite in termini di cooperazione tra servizi autonomi. • Coordinazione: tutti gli aspetti legati alla composizione ed alla esecuzione di servizi cos`ı come l’elaborazione dell’informazione contestuale. • Ontologia dell’Applicazione: rappresenta il punto di vista dell’applicazione; definisce la semantica delle risorse, dei servizi e dell’informazione contestuale. Applicando il paradigma proposto da UBIDEV, si possono descrivere applicazioni in accordo con un modello Service-oriented [Bie02] ed, al tempo stesso, ridurre l’applicazione stessa alle sue funzionalit`a di alto livello senza intervenire troppo su come queste funzionalit` a devono essere realizzate dalle singole componenti fisiche

Compact and kinetic projected augmented reality interface

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 143-150).For quite some time, researchers and designers in the field of human computer interaction have strived to better integrate information interfaces into our physical environment. They envisioned a future where computing and interface components would be integrated into the physical environment, creating a seamless experience that uses all our senses. One possible approach to this problem employs projected augmented reality. Such systems project digital information and interfaces onto the physical world and are typically implemented using interactive projector-camera systems. This thesis work is centered on design and implementation of a new form factor for computing, a system we call LuminAR. LuminAR is a compact and kinetic projected augmented reality interface embodied in familiar everyday objects, namely a light bulb and a task light. It allows users to dynamically augment physical surfaces and objects with superimposed digital information using gestural and multi-touch interfaces. This thesis documents LuminAR's design process, hardware and software implementation and interaction techniques. The work is motivated through a set of applications that explore scenarios for interactive and kinetic projected augmented reality interfaces. It also opens the door for further explorations of kinetic interaction and promotes the adoption of projected augmented reality as a commonplace user interface modality. This thesis work was partially supported by a research grant from Intel Corporation.Supported by a research grant from Intel Corporationby Natan Linder.S.M

A adopção de códigos visuais como modelo de interacção

Dissertação de Mestrado em Sistemas MóveisUma das características inerentes à computação ubíqua é o desvanecer da fronteira entre elementos físicos e elementos virtuais, para que a transição entre ambos possa ser efectuada de forma simples e natural. Nesse contexto de fusão físico-virtual, de interacção com o “computador” passa para uma interacção com o ambiente que rodeia a pessoa. A manipulação de objectos físicos tem consequências no mundo virtual e, de forma idêntica, os eventos no mundo virtual têm repercussões, ou efeitos, em objectos do mundo físico. Os códigos visuais visam afirmar-se como uma das tecnologias que poderá suportar esse tipo de interacções, servindo de fronteira entre ambos os mundos. Um código visual é uma pequena marca embebida num ambiente físico que, quando fotografada e interpretada utilizando, por exemplo, um telemóvel, permite abrir uma porta para um determinado serviço do mundo virtual. Apesar de ser frequentemente apresentada como uma tecnologia promissora nesses contextos, existem ainda poucos estudos sobre a adequação ou a aplicabilidade desta tecnologia como meio de interacção e suporte à fusão físico-virtual. Assim, este estudo possui como objectivo geral descobrir factores potenciadores ou condicionantes da adopção, por parte dos utilizadores, desta tecnologia como meio de interacção com um sistema. No sentido de atingir o objectivo proposto, efectuou-se um trabalho de campo que culminou no desenvolvimento de um protótipo para fornecer aos utilizadores uma aplicação real onde pudessem experimentar esta tecnologia, por um período razoável de tempo. A aplicação esteve disponível para testes durante três meses. Dos dados obtidos pode concluir-se que os códigos visuais, embora sejam suportados por um modelo de interacção simples, necessitam mesmo assim de uma breve introdução inicial. Este estudo permitiu também detectar algumas condicionantes funcionais, tendo no entanto sido notório que as condicionantes técnicas se revelaram muito mais preponderantes e exigentes. Aliado à imagem e primeira impressão da tecnologia, será determinante não existirem falhas, ou faltas de serviço, nas tentativas iniciais para assim se salvaguardar um futuro promissor. Finalmente, constatou-se também que os serviços disponibilizados são de extrema relevância para o êxito da adopção. Embora o factor curiosidade seja muito favorável aos códigos visuais, sem funcionalidades verdadeiramente desejadas pelos potenciais utilizadores, conseguir a sua adopção será muito difícil ou, pelo menos, tal não ocorrerá de forma espontânea ou sem a influência de terceiros.A particular characteristic of ubiquitous computing is to vanish the border between physical and virtual elements, so that transition between both is done as simple and natural as possible. In this physical-virtual merging context, instead of interaction with a “computer” is rather an interaction with a person’s environment. Interaction with physical objects has consequences in the virtual world and, on the same basis, events from the virtual world has repercussion, or effects, in the physical world. Visual codes aim to stand for as a valid technology to support this kind of interactions, handling in the edge of both worlds. A visual code is small mark embedded in a physical environment that, when photographed and interpreted by using, for instance, a mobile phone, allows one to open a door into a specific service in the virtual world. Although frequently named as a promising technology in theses contexts, few studies still available about it’s true applicability or adequacy as an interaction model and support technology for the physical-virtual merging concept. Thus, this study main goal is to discover enabling or disabling factors regarding the technology adoption, from the user’s point of view, as a valid interaction model with a system. In order to achieve proposed goal, work-field was done that led into a development of a prototype so that users could have the possibility to evaluate a real application where they could try the technology for a reasonable period of time. The application was available for testing during three months. From the data collected it could be concluded that visual codes, although supported by a simple interaction model, require an initial introduction, even though this can be achieved by a brief overview. This study also allowed to discover some functional constraints, however technical ones were broadly more relevant and far more demanding. Faults, or lack of service, during first user attempts will be critical, or causing great image recover effort, for the future success of the technology/application. Finally, it became obvious that deployed services are of extreme relevance for a success adoption technology story. Although people curiosity on the technology played favourable for the visual codes application, without functionalities truly desired by the potential users, obtain its adoption proved to be very difficult or, at least, will not occur in such a spontaneous and freely way

The Continuum Architecture: Towards Enabling Chaotic Ubiquitous Computing

Interactions in the style of the ubiquitous computing paradigm are possible today, but only in handcrafted environments within one administrative and technological realm. This thesis describes an architecture (called Continuum), a design that realises the architecture, and a proof-of-concept implementation that brings ubiquitous computing to chaotic environments. Essentially, Continuum enables an ecology at the edge of the network, between users, competing service providers from overlapping administrative domains, competing internet service providers, content providers, and software developers that want to add value to the user experience. Continuum makes the ubiquitous computing functionality orthogonal to other application logic. Existing web applications are augmented for ubiquitous computing with functionality that is dynamically compiled and injected by a middleware proxy into the web pages requested by a web browser at the user?s mobile device. This enables adaptability to environment variability, manageability without user involvement, and expansibility without changes to the mobile. The middleware manipulates self-contained software units with precise functionality (called frames), which help the user interact with contextual services in conjunction with the data to which they are attached. The middleware and frame design explicitly incorporates the possibility of discrepancies between the assumptions of ubiquitous-computing software developers and field realities: multiple administrative domains, unavailable service, unavailable software, and missing contextual information. A framework for discovery and authorisation addresses the chaos inherent to the paradigm through the notion of role assertions acquired dynamically by the user. Each assertion represents service access credentials and contains bootstrapping points for service discovery on behalf of the holding user. A proof-of-concept prototype validates the design, and implements several frames that demonstrate general functionality, including driving discovery queries over multiple service discovery protocols and making equivalences between service types, across discovery protocols

Interactive ubiquitous displays based on steerable projection

The ongoing miniaturization of computers and their embedding into the physical environment require new means of visual output. In the area of Ubiquitous Computing, flexible and adaptable display options are needed in order to enable the presentation of visual content in the physical environment. In this dissertation, we introduce the concepts of Display Continuum and Virtual Displays as new means of human-computer interaction. In this context, we present a realization of a Display Continuum based on steerable projection, and we describe a number of different interaction methods for manipulating this Display Continuum and the Virtual Displays placed on it.Mit zunehmender Miniaturisierung der Computer und ihrer Einbettung in der physikalischen Umgebung werden neue Arten der visuellen Ausgabe notwendig. Im Bereich des Ubiquitous Computing (Rechnerallgegenwart) werden flexible und anpassungsfähige Displays benötigt, um eine Anzeige von visuellen Inhalten unmittelbar in der physikalischen Umgebung zu ermöglichen. In dieser Dissertation führen wir das Konzept des Display-Kontinuums und der Virtuellen Displays als Instrument der Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion ein. In diesem Zusammenhang präsentieren wir eine mögliche Display-Kontinuum-Realisierung, die auf der Verwendung steuerbarer Projektion basiert, und wir beschreiben mehrere verschiedene Interaktionsmethoden, mit denen man das Display-Kontinuum und die darauf platzierten Virtuellen Displays steuern kann

Escalonamento autónomo e sensível ao contexto para ecrãs públicos

Tese de doutoramento em Tecnologias e Sistemas de InformaçãoO advento da computação ubíqua e a proliferação das tecnologias de ecrãs e sensores fez surgir novas oportunidades para o desenvolvimento de ecrãs interactivos e sensíveis ao contexto. Estes ecrãs, integrados com vários tipos de sensores, podem ser utilizados para apresentação de aplicações ubíquas cujos conteúdos estão relacionados com o espaço onde se encontram situados. Nestes casos os ecrãs podem actuar como portais entre o mundo virtual e o mundo físico desses espaços, reflectindo a informação e as interacções associadas ao seu ambiente envolvente e às pessoas que o frequentam. Para que isto seja possível, os ecrãs públicos e situados devem ir muito além daquilo que, actualmente, é a sua utilização, que consiste essencialmente na apresentação de conteúdos pré‐definidos, através de algoritmos de escalonamento não adaptativos, ou simples reacções a interacções dos utilizadores. Os ecrãs devem ser capazes de autonomamente descobrir de forma dinâmica as fontes de conteúdos mais relevantes e mais apropriadas para cada situação em particular e seleccionar, a cada momento, o conteúdo mais útil para o contexto social envolvente do ecrã. Nesta tese é proposta uma nova abordagem de escalonamento autónomo e sensível ao contexto para ecrãs públicos. Nesta abordagem, as intencionalidades partilhadas do gestor do ecrã e dos múltiplos visitantes do espaço, obtidas através de interacções situadas na forma de palavras‐chave, semanticamente contextualizadas através de informação de contexto, permitem a construção de um perfil de espaço partilhado de alto nível o qual representa o ambiente social envolvente do ecrã. Esta informação, juntamente com modelos de relevância adaptados ao tipo de conteúdo, representam a base do modelo de escalonamento adaptativo que procura as fontes de conteúdo mais relevantes e selecciona, a cada momento, o conteúdo mais apropriado para o ambiente social envolvente do ecrã. Os resultados das avaliações sugerem que os utilizadores reconhecem a sensibilidade do ecrã às suas interacções e que esta é uma abordagem viável para a recomendação adaptativa de conteúdo em ecrãs públicos seleccionando conteúdo relevante e adequado à sua envolvente social. Sugerem também que a abordagem proposta pode representar um passo importante para a emergência de um perfil dinâmico de espaço que representa as expectativas sociais e as práticas da sua envolvente social valorizando esses espaços e criando janelas de interacção com os sistemas de informação e com as actividades associadas a esses espaços.The advent of ubiquitous computing and recent advances in screen and sensor technology, have resulted in new opportunities for developing context‐aware and interactive displays. These displays, integrated with different types of sensors, can be used for the presentation of ubiquitous applications with content related to the environment where they are situated. In these cases displays can act as portals between the virtual world and the physical world, reflecting the information and the interactions associated with that environment and the people on it. To achieve this, public and situated displays should go beyond what is their actual usage nowadays, that is the presentation of pre‐defined and pre‐built content through nonadaptive scheduling processes or simply reacting to users’ interactions. They should be able to discover autonomously the content sources that are more relevant and appropriate for each particular situation and select, at each moment, the content that is more useful to the social environment around the display. This thesis proposes a novel approach to autonomous and context‐aware scheduling for public displays. In this approach, the shared intentionality of both the display manager and the multiple visitors to the space, obtained through situated interactions with simple keywords, semantically contextualized by context keywords, allows building a high‐level shared place profile that characterizes the social environment around the display. This information, together with relevance models adapted to the particularities of each content type, represent the knowledge base of the adaptive scheduling model that searches the most relevant content sources and schedules at each moment the most appropriate content for the social environment around the display. Evaluation results show that, users recognize the display’s sensitivity to their interactions and this is a viable approach for content adaptive recommendation in public displays, allowing the presentation of adequate and relevant content for each situation. Evaluation also suggests that this approach represents an important step towards the emergence of a dynamic place profile that represents the social expectations and the social environment practices, valuing these spaces and opening windows of interaction with information systems and activities associated to these spaces.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT