Generic framework for the personal omni-remote controller using M2MI

A Generic Framework for the Personal Omni-Remote Controller Using M2MI is a master’s thesis outlining a generic framework for the wireless omni-remote controller that controls neighboring appliances by using Many-to-Many Invocation (M2MI). M2MI is an object-oriented abstraction of broadcast communication. First, this paper introduces the history of remote controllers and analyzes omni-remote controller projects made by other researchers in this area, such as the Pebbles PDA project at Carnegie Mellon University and HP’s COOLTOWN project. Second, this paper depicts a generic framework of the personal omni-remote controller system including architecture, type hierarchy, and service discovery. In this framework, a module approach and a decentralized dual-mode service discovery scheme are introduced. When users request a certain type of service, their omni-remote controller application will first discover the available appliances in the vicinity and then bring up the corresponding control module for the target appliance. Thus, users can control the appliance through the User Interface of the control module. To join the omni-remote controller system, servers and clients need to follow the type hierarchy convention of the system. Finally, several implementations are given to show the control of different appliances with different capabilities. These appliances include thermostats, TVs with parental control, and washing machines

Using tablet devices to control complex home appliances

Internet of things has made connected devices and appliances widely available and tablet devices are common household items. This study focuses on technical user interface design challenges and requirements for user interface design of controlling complex home appliances with tablet devices. There is a literature review about available controlling technologies and usability heuristics related to tablet and mobile devices. An Android test application was created and tested with four test users to find out how well those heuristics work and are covered. That application was tested against the regular user interface of a dishwasher and task completion times and errors were noted down. Test users were asked to answer a questionnaire regarding the heuristics and how well the implementation performed. Tablet devices should be evaluated using regular usability heuristics, but besides them they require mobile specific heuristics, such as easy of input, screen readability and glancability, physical interaction and ergonomics and privacy and social convention taken into account. The results showed that a tablet user interface was able to outperform its regular counterpart in task completion times and in number of errors. The implementation also covered those heuristics in a more comprehensive way. But among test persons the most benefit was with users who were familiar with tablets and not with dishwashers. A test user who wasn t familiar with tablets but was with dishwashers performed tasks faster and with fewer errors with regular user interface. In conclusion a tablet user interface enabled users who were familiar with tablets to perform tasks faster and with less errors. Those users were also more satisfied with a tablet user interface than a regular one. On the other hand a test user with little experience of tablets and familiarity with dishwashers was able to perform tasks faster an with less errors with the regular user interface. A tablet user interface was able to offer extra benefits and efficiency to users, but regular user interface should be also available to satisfy users who are not familiar with mobile devices

The Internet of Things Will Thrive by 2025

This report is the latest research report in a sustained effort throughout 2014 by the Pew Research Center Internet Project to mark the 25th anniversary of the creation of the World Wide Web by Sir Tim Berners-LeeThis current report is an analysis of opinions about the likely expansion of the Internet of Things (sometimes called the Cloud of Things), a catchall phrase for the array of devices, appliances, vehicles, wearable material, and sensor-laden parts of the environment that connect to each other and feed data back and forth. It covers the over 1,600 responses that were offered specifically about our question about where the Internet of Things would stand by the year 2025. The report is the next in a series of eight Pew Research and Elon University analyses to be issued this year in which experts will share their expectations about the future of such things as privacy, cybersecurity, and net neutrality. It includes some of the best and most provocative of the predictions survey respondents made when specifically asked to share their views about the evolution of embedded and wearable computing and the Internet of Things

Multi-Device Design in Contexts of Interchange and Task Migration

Com a miniaturização dos componentes digitais e o vasto desenvolvimento tecnológico dos últimos anos, a sociedade tem presenciado a redefinição dos "computadores pessoais" pelo advento dos dispositivos móveis. Além da inovação, eles introduziram o desafio do design multi-dispositivo para as aplicações desktop. Enquanto algumas abordagens criaram interfaces móveis sem aproveitar qualquer modelo, outras buscaram adaptações automáticas visando reduzir a sobrecarga de designo Em ambas, o foco do design deixou de ser o usuário, tornando as interfaces tão diferentes ao ponto de comprometerem a usabilidade na realização de uma mesma tarefa em vários dispositivos. Esta tese afirma que não existe uma abordagem de design multi-dispositivo capaz de garantir boa usabilidade em todos os contextos porque o usuário pode escolher apenas uma forma de acesso à aplicação ou alternar seu uso por meio de vários dispositivos. No primeiro caso, o usuário aprende a usar a interface para realizar suas tarefas, sendo relevante uma abordagem que aproveite os recursos do dispositivo e trate suas limitações. No segundo, o usuário já conhece uma das interfaces, o que gera uma expectativa no uso das demais. Logo, é necessário combinar abordagens com objetivos diferentes para atender ao usuário de acordo com o seu contexto de uso. Neste sentido, propõe-se o design multi-dispositivo por meio da preservação de uma hierarquia de prioridades de consistência definida em três níveis. Enquanto os dois primeiros dão suporte à expectativa do usuário em contextos de uso alternado (propensos à execução de tarefas em dispositivos diferentes) e migração de tarefas (iniciando tarefas com um dispositivo e concluindo com outro), o terceiro nível garante a personalização das tarefas de maior interesse visando eficiência e satisfação de uso em um dispositivo específico. A avaliação desta metodologia foi feita por meio de um experimento com três interfaces de pocket PC construídas a partir de uma aplicação desktop do domínio de Educação a Distância: a primeira delas era uma réplica da original (Migração Direta), a segunda não mantinha consistência de layout e era baseada em um processo de design personalizado adequado ao dispositivo (Linear) e a terceira aplicava apenas os dois primeiros níveis da hierarquia de prioridades (Overview). Os resultados da avaliação subjetiva mostraram que a abordagem Overview foi capaz de manter o modelo mental do usuário com maior precisão por preservar os atributos de facilidade, eficiência e segurança de uso na interação inter-dispositivo. Além disso, os resultados medidos para a eficácia (exatidão das respostas) e eficiênciá (tempo médio de execução das tarefas) foram iguais ou melhores com essa abordagem. Por outro lado, os usuários revelaram uma preferência pela personalização de tarefas presente na abordagem Linear. Este resultado dá suporte à proposta desta tese, mostrando que a eficácia gerada pelos dois primeiros níveis da hierarquia de prioridades (percepção e execução das tarefas) deve ser combinada com o terceiro nível de personalização. Para isso, sugere-se a disponibilização de padrões de interface criados pelo designer para escolha do usuário durante a interação. Essa combinação deve garantir usabilidade no acesso a uma aplicação feito sempre por um mesmo dispositivo ou em contextos de uso alternado e migração de tarefasWith the miniaturization of digital components and the vast technological development of the past years, society has remarked the redefinition of "personal computers" by the advent of modern mobile devices. Besides the innovation, these handhelds also introduced the challenge to develop multi-device interfaces for today's desktop applications. While some created mobile interfaces from scratch to get the best from the devices, others looked for automatic adaptations to reduce the load imposed to the designeI. In both cases, the user wasn't the focus anymore, which resulted interfaces so different from each other to the point of compromising usability when peHorming one task on many devices. This thesis claims that there is no multi-device approach capable to provi de full usability in every context because the user may choose only one interface to access the application or interchange its use via many devices. In the first case, the user learns to perform tasks with the given device, which makes relevant an approach that takes advantage of its resources and solves its limitations. In the second, the user already knows one of the available interfaces, which generates an expectation for the others. Therefore, it is necessary to combine approaches with different goals and suit the user according to the appropriate context. In this sense, we propose multi-device design via maintenance of a consistency priorities hierarchy defined in three levels. The first two levels give support to the user's expectation in contexts of interchange (prone to task execution with different devices) and task migration (starting tasks with one device and finishing with other). On the other side, the third level provides task personalization according to the user's interest towards higher efficiency and satisfaction of use with a specific device. The evaluation of this methodology was conducted by an experiment with three pocket PC interfaces designed from an e-learning desktop application: the first interface was an exact replica of the original desktop version (Direct Migration), the second didn't maintain layout consistency and was based in a personalized design process adequate to the device (Linear) while the third applied only the first two levels of the consistency priorities hierarchy (Overview). The subjective evaluation results pointed the Overview approach as the best to maintain the user's mental model by preserving easiness, efficiency and safety of use on inter-device interaction. Additionally, both measured efficacy (task result accuracy) and efficiency (task execution mean time) were the same or even better with this approach. On the other hand, users revealed their preference for the task personalization present in the Linear approach. This result gives support to our proposal, corroborating that the efficacy generated by the first two levels of the consistency priorities hierarchy (task perception and execution) should be combined with the third level of personalization. This could be done by letting designers create interface patterns and make them available to users during interaction. Such combination should guarantee usability while constantly accessing one application through the same device or in contexts of alternated use and task migratio

A mobile sensing solution for indoor and outdoor state detection

Abstract. One important research challenge in ubiquitous computing is determining a device’s indoor/outdoor environmental state. Particularly with modern smartphones, environmental information is important for enabling of new types of services and optimizing already existing functionalities. This thesis presents a tool for Android-powered smartphones called ContextIO for detecting the device’s indoor/outdoor state by combining different onboard sensors of the device itself. To develop ContextIO, we developed a plugin to AWARE mobile sensing framework. Together the plugin and its separate controller component collect rich environmental sensor data. The data analysis and ContextIO’s design considers collected data particularly about magnetometer, ambient light and GSM cellular signal strength. We manually derive thresholds in the data that can be used in combination to infer whether a device is indoor or outdoor. ContextIO uses the same thresholds to infer the state in real time. This thesis contributes an Android tool for inferring the device’s indoor/outdoor status, an open dataset that other researchers can use in their work and an analysis of the collected sensor data for environmental indoor/outdoor state detection.Tiivistelmä. Yksi jokapaikan tietotekniikan tutkimuskysymyksistä keskittyy selvittämään onko laitteen sijainti sisä- vai ulkotilassa. Etenkin uudet älypuhelimet pystyvät hyödyntämään tätä tietoa uudenlaisten palveluiden ja sovellusten kehittämisessä sekä vanhojen toiminnallisuuksien optimoinnissa. Tämä diplomityö esittelee Android-käyttöjärjestelmällä toimiville puhelimille suunnatun työkalun nimeltään ContextIO. Työkalu yhdistelee älypuhelimen sensorien tuottamaa tietoa ja havaitsee laitteen siirtymisen eri sijaintiin sisä- ja ulkotilojen suhteen. ContextIO:n suunnittelu ja kehitystyö perustuvat data-analyysiin, jonka data kerättiin AWARE-sensorialustan liitännäisellä sekä erillisellä nimeämistyökalulla. Data-analyysi keskittyy magnetometrin, valosensorin sekä GSM-kentän voimakkuuden hyödyntämiseen paikantamisessa. Kerätystä datasta määriteltiin raja-arvot, joita yhdistelemällä voidaan varsin luotettavasti todeta laitteen sijainti sisä- ja ulkotilojen suhteen. Nämä raja-arvot luovat perustan ContextIO:n reaaliaikaiselle laitteen sijainnin määrittämiselle. Tämän diplomityön pääasialliset tulokset ovat työkalu Android-pohjaisten älypuhelinten sijainnin määrittämiseen sisä- ja ulkotilojen suhteen, avoin datasetti, jota muut tutkijat voivat käyttää sekä sijainnin määrittämiseen keskittyvä data-analyysi

A review of the evidence on the use of ICT in the Early Years Foundation Stage

This report reviewed existing evidence on the potential of technology to support the development of educational policy and practice in the context of the Early Years Foundation Stage. Reference is made to the use of ICT by young children from aged birth to five years and its potential impacts, positive and negative on their cognitive, social, emotional educational, visual and physical development