Ambient intelligence: applications and privacy policies

Proceedings of: 12th International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, University of Salamanca (Spain), 4th-6th June, 2014. Workshop on Intelligent Systems for Context-based Information Fusion (ISCIF 2014)In this paper, we present a complete overview of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) focused in its applications, considering the involved domain and technologies. The applications include AmI at home, care of elderly and people with disabilities, healthcare, education, business, public services, leisure and entertainment. The aim of this survey of AmI’s applications is to show its socials and ethical implications and specially privacy issues. Intelligent Environments (IE) collect and process a massive amount of person-related and sensitive data. These data must ensure privacy of the users. An important concern in AmI's applications is privacy. Addressing design by privacy, an important challenge to consider is the development of an architecture that includes the different privacy policies and how can we fusion them in a specific application domain. Ensuring privacy in Intelligent Environments is a difficult problem to solve, as there are different perceptions of privacy and its role in computing for each user. In the so called ‘design by privacy’ we have to identify the relevant design issues that should be addressed for its developing. Here we present an approach to the dimensions to consider, in order to provide privacy in the design of Ambient Intelligence’s applications.This work has been supported in part by the projects: CAM “Contexts” (S2009/TIC-1485), MINECO “Falcon” (TEC2011-28626-C02-02), MINECO “Tease” (TEC2012-37832-C02-01)

The survey on Near Field Communication

PubMed ID: 26057043Near Field Communication (NFC) is an emerging short-range wireless communication technology that offers great and varied promise in services such as payment, ticketing, gaming, crowd sourcing, voting, navigation, and many others. NFC technology enables the integration of services from a wide range of applications into one single smartphone. NFC technology has emerged recently, and consequently not much academic data are available yet, although the number of academic research studies carried out in the past two years has already surpassed the total number of the prior works combined. This paper presents the concept of NFC technology in a holistic approach from different perspectives, including hardware improvement and optimization, communication essentials and standards, applications, secure elements, privacy and security, usability analysis, and ecosystem and business issues. Further research opportunities in terms of the academic and business points of view are also explored and discussed at the end of each section. This comprehensive survey will be a valuable guide for researchers and academicians, as well as for business in the NFC technology and ecosystem.Publisher's Versio

Near Field Communication: Technology and Market Trends

Among the different hi-tech content domains, the telecommunications industry is one of the most relevant, in particular for the Italian economy. Moreover, Near Field Communication (NFC) represents an example of innovative production and a technological introduction in the telecommunications context. It has a threefold function: card emulator, peer-to-peer communication and digital content access, and it could be pervasively integrated in many different domains, especially in the mobile payment one. The increasing attention on NFC technology from the academic community has improved an analysis on the changes and the development perspective about mobile payments. It has considered the work done by the GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communications Association) and the NFC Forum in recent years. This study starts from an analysis of the scientific contributions to Near Field Communication and how the main researches on this topic were conceived. Our focus is on the diffusion rates, the adoption rates and the technology life cycle. After that, we analyze the technical-economical elements of NFC. Finally, this work presents the state of art of the improvements to this technology with a deeper focus on NFC technologies applied to the tourism industry. In this way, we have done a case analysis that shows some of the NFC existent applications linked to each stage of the tourism value chain

Near Field Communication: From theory to practice

This book provides the technical essentials, state-of-the-art knowledge, business ecosystem and standards of Near Field Communication (NFC)by NFC Lab - Istanbul research centre which conducts intense research on NFC technology. In this book, the authors present the contemporary research on all aspects of NFC, addressing related security aspects as well as information on various business models. In addition, the book provides comprehensive information a designer needs to design an NFC project, an analyzer needs to analyze requirements of a new NFC based system, and a programmer needs to implement an application. Furthermore, the authors introduce the technical and administrative issues related to NFC technology, standards, and global stakeholders. It also offers comprehensive information as well as use case studies for each NFC operating mode to give the usage idea behind each operating mode thoroughly. Examples of NFC application development are provided using Java technology, and security considerations are discussed in detail. Key Features: Offers a complete understanding of the NFC technology, including standards, technical essentials, operating modes, application development with Java, security and privacy, business ecosystem analysis Provides analysis, design as well as development guidance for professionals from administrative and technical perspectives Discusses methods, techniques and modelling support including UML are demonstrated with real cases Contains case studies such as payment, ticketing, social networking and remote shopping This book will be an invaluable guide for business and ecosystem analysts, project managers, mobile commerce consultants, system and application developers, mobile developers and practitioners. It will also be of interest to researchers, software engineers, computer scientists, information technology specialists including students and graduates.Publisher's Versio

Sustainable forms of smart tourism

The improvement of technology makes smart devices and their applications in travel and tourism industry ever more popular and complex. Tourism require a variety of services and products. This diversity results in a multitude of smart applications and smart tourist systems designed to enhance visitor's experience and satisfaction while traveling. This article presents and briefly discusses the concept of smart tourism in the scientific literature and the way it can be applied for sustainable destinations. Some important difficulties and challenges of smart tourism are discussed

Near-Field Communication Technology: Regulatory and Legal Recommendations for Embracing the NFC Revolution

Despite its ease and convenience, NFC technology raises a number of privacy issues. Chief among these concerns are the collection, retention, and usage of personally-identifying information contained within NFC-enabled devices by both private and public entities. Within that category, the most pressing privacy issues inherent in the collection and usage of such information relate to real-time tracking or after-the-fact habit profiling and identity theft. As well, privacy issues persist around the means used, if any, to secure and protect that information from unauthorized third parties both at the end-user and systemic database levels. In light of these concerns, it is useful to examine the Japanese approach to NFC technology, both dealing with the physical technology itself, and the system of networks and databases in which that technology operates. Japan provides a strong model for comparison given the country’s long-standing use of NFC technology, and robust privacy-protection laws and industry guidelines which exist in relation to NFC usage. While privacy protection legislation exists in Canada, compliance is lacking and enforcement powers virtually non-existent for privacy commissioners. Amending Canada’s privacy legislation by taking cues from the Japanese model will allow Canada to better anticipate, and embrace, the “e-wallet revolution”

Mobile applications approaches using near field communication support

Nowadays, the society is constantly evolving technologically and new products and technologies appears every day. These technologies allow the well-being of societies and their populations. Mobile gadgets evolution, mainly the smartphones, has always been at the forefront, everyday new devices appear and with them, more recent technologies. These technologies provide a better quality of life of everybody who uses them. People need to have at their disposal a whole array of new features that make their life increasingly more easily. The use of gadgets to simplify the day-to-day is growing and for this people use all disposal types of devices, such as computers, laptops, file servers, smartphones, tablets, and among of others. With the need to use all these devices a problem appears, the data synchronization and a way to simplify the usage of smartphones. What is the advantage of having so much technology available if we need to concern about the interoperability between all devices? There are some solutions to overcome these problems, but most often the advantage brought by these technologies has associated some setup configurations and time is money. Near field communication (NFC) appeared in 2004 but only now has gained the market dominance and visibility, everybody wants to have a NFC based solution, like Google, Apple, Microsoft and other IT giants. NFC is the best solution to overcome some problems like, file synchronization, content sharing, pairing devices, and launch applications without user interaction. NFC arises as a technology that was forgotten, but it has everything to win in every global solutions and markets. In this dissertation two based solutions are presented, an application to transfer money using NFC and an application launcher. Both solutions are an innovation in market because there are nothing like these. A prototype of each application was build and tested. NFC Launcher is already in Android Market. NFC Launcher and Credit Transfer were built, evaluated and are ready for use

A Holistic Approach to Asses the Determinants of Travel-Tracking Mobile Application Acceptance

This thesis investigated factors affecting travelers\u27 intention to adopt a new type of travel-focused mobile application named travel-tracking mobile applications (TTMA). In general, TTMAs enable travelers to act as travel-posters (i.e., those who use the application to record and post/share their travel routes and travel-related information and experiences), and/or travel-takers (i.e., those who use the application to access, read, and follow the travel routes and other travel-related information and experiences posted/shared by travel-posters). By adopting an extended version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2) framework (Venkatesh et al., 2012), the first part of the study examined factors influencing travel-takers\u27 intention to use the information provided on TTMAs. Based on the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (Deci & Ryan 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2000) and an extended version of the UTAUT2 framework (Venkatesh et al., 2012), the second part of the study investigated factors affecting travel-posters\u27 intention to post/share their travel-related information on TTMAs. To examine the proposed relationships, this study adopted a two-step approach recommended by Anderson and Gerbing (1988). The first step included a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to assess the measurement model. The second step of the data analysis employed a structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the study hypotheses. Data collected from 305 mobile app users who traveled for leisure purposes at least once in the last two years demonstrated that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, hedonic motivations, and trust positively; and system privacy, negatively influenced users\u27 intension to use TTMA as travel-takers. In addition, the study results revealed that effort expectancy, hedonic motivation, social benefits, self-image had a positive impact; and location privacy concerns had a negative impact on users\u27 intention to use TTMA as travel-posters. The findings of the current study contribute to the general body of knowledge in the context of technology acceptance in general, and TTMA acceptance in the travel and tourism industries in particular. The study results also provide significant practical implications for hospitality, tourism-related technology companies, and travel entrepreneurs

Personality and technology: Big five personality traits as descriptors of universal acceptance and usage of technology UTAUT.

Presently, information professionals are progressively dependent on information and communication technologies to complete their everyday tasks. As, result dependence on PC frameworks, programming and data innovation-related technologies are increasing for better working and providing quality services. Therefore, to understand, analyze and evaluate the acceptance and use of this technology several models of technology acceptance and use have been formulated in information science literature. Using eight such models, Venkatesh, Morris, Davis and Davis proposed a unified model called the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology or (UTAUT) model. The UTAUT model has been studied and analyzed in various spheres including education, banking, health, tourism, e-government services and its recent application in the personality studies. The application of UTAUT model to the core constructs of big five personality traits have been utilized to predict the adoption and usage of technology according to different personality types such as neurotic, open to experience, extravert, conscientious and agreeabl

Determinants of Mobile Commerce Adoption in Developing Countries: Evidence from Rwanda

The rapid development of wireless technology and telecommunication networks has led to mobile devices playing an increasing role in people's lives. Businesses have recognised the value of mobile communication tools and trading platforms. A new type of technology-aided commerce – mobile commerce including mobile financial services – has gained importance in theory and practice. However, in the context of developing countries, the literature on the potential of mobile commerce and its driving factors is still limited. Along five empirical studies conducted in Rwanda, this research identifies the factors that drive the success of mobile commerce and financial services. It defines an appropriate infrastructure (power supply and network connectivity), a suitable regulatory setting, sufficient consumer awareness, and a proper distribution network as crucial for adopting mobile commerce and harvesting its potential. Thereupon, the research derives recommendations to Rwandan policymakers and practitioners in order to achieve economic growth, reduce poverty, and enhance national welfare Rwanda