The Broken Dream of Pervasive Sentient Ambient Calm Invisible Ubiquitous Computing

Date of Acceptance: 15/12/2014We dreamt of technology becoming invisible, for our wants and needs to be primary and the tools we use for making them a reality to become like a genie, a snap of the fingers and ta daa, everything is realised. What went wrong? Was this always an impossible dream? How did we end up with this fetishised obsession with mobile phones? How did we end up with technology tearing apart our sense of experience and replacing it with 'Likes'. No one meant this to happen, not even US Corporates, they just wanted to own us, not diminish our sense of existing and interacting within the real world. In this paper we consider how tools took over, and how the dream of ubiquitous (or whatever its called) computing was destroyed. We rally rebellious forces and consider how we might fight back, and whether we should even bother trying.Postprin

Degrees of Agency in Owners and Users of Home IoT Devices

Internet of Things (IoT) devices are slowly populating our homes. In this age of sharing economy and increased mobility, however, the home environment is no longer a fixed location always shared by the same people. To better understand the issues and challenges around agency and IoT use in the home, we take a pragmatic and situated approach. In this paper, we draw on our own experiences as users and identify the tensions between ownership and usage, and the economic implications there might be when sharing IoT systems with trusted people vs. strangers. We suggest the distinction between owners and users should b

Living In A Prototype: A Reconfigured Space

In this paper, we present a twenty-three months autobiographical design project of converting a Mercedes Sprinter van into a camper van. This project allows us to investigate the complexities and nuances of a case where people engage in a process of making, transforming and adapting a space they live in. This example opens a radically different and productive context for revisiting concepts that are currently at the center of human-computer interaction (HCI) research: ubiquitous computing, home automation, smart homes, and the Internet of Things. We offer six qualities characterizing the evolving relationship between the makers and the lived-in environment: the van. We conclude with a discussion on the two themes of living in a reconfigured home and prototype qualities in a reconfigured space, and a critical reflection around the theme of the invariably unfinished home

Display computers

A Display Computer (DC) is an everyday object: Display Computer = Display + Computer. The “Display” part is the standard viewing surface found on everyday objects that conveys information or art. The “Computer” is found on the same everyday object; but by its ubiquitous nature, it will be relatively unnoticeable by the DC user, as it is manufactured “in the margins”. A DC may be mobile, moving with us as part of the everyday object we are using. DCs will be ubiquitous: “effectively invisible”, available at a glance, and seamlessly integrated into the environment. A DC should be an example of Weiser’s calm technology: encalming to the user, providing peripheral awareness without information overload. A DC should provide unremarkable computing in support of our daily routines in life. The nbaCub (nightly bedtime ambient Cues utility buddy) prototype illustrates a sample application of how DCs can be useful in the everyday environment of the home of the future. Embedding a computer into a toy, such that the display is the only visible portion, can present many opportunities for seamless and nontraditional uses of computing technology for our youngest user community. A field study was conducted in the home environment of a five-year old child over ten consecutive weeks as an informal, proof of concept of what Display Computers for children can look like and be used for in the near future. The personalized nbaCub provided lightweight, ambient information during the necessary daily routines of preparing for bed (evening routine) and preparing to go to school (morning routine). To further understand the child’s progress towards learning abstract concepts of time passage and routines, a novel “test by design” activity was included. Here, the role of the subject changed to primary designer/director. Final post-testing showed the subject knew both morning and bedtime routines very well and correctly answered seven of eight questions based on abstract images of time passage. Thus, the subject was in the process of learning the more abstract concept of time passage, but was not totally comfortable with the idea at the end of the study

Seven HCI Grand Challenges

This article aims to investigate the Grand Challenges which arise in the current and emerging landscape of rapid technological evolution towards more intelligent interactive technologies, coupled with increased and widened societal needs, as well as individual and collective expectations that HCI, as a discipline, is called upon to address. A perspective oriented to humane and social values is adopted, formulating the challenges in terms of the impact of emerging intelligent interactive technologies on human life both at the individual and societal levels. Seven Grand Challenges are identified and presented in this article: Human-Technology Symbiosis; Human-Environment Interactions; Ethics, Privacy and Security; Well-being, Health and Eudaimonia; Accessibility and Universal Access; Learning and Creativity; and Social Organization and Democracy. Although not exhaustive, they summarize the views and research priorities of an international interdisciplinary group of experts, reflecting different scientific perspectives, methodological approaches and application domains. Each identified Grand Challenge is analyzed in terms of: concept and problem definition; main research issues involved and state of the art; and associated emerging requirements

Interfaces and interfacings: posthuman ecologies, bodies and identities

This dissertation posits a posthuman theory for a technologically-driven ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) world, specifically theorizing cognition, intentionality and interface. The larger aim of this project is to open up discussions about human and technological relations and how these relations shape our understanding of what it means to be human. Situating my argument within posthuman and rhetorical theories, I discuss the metaphorical cyborg as a site of resistance, the everyday cyborg and its relations to technology through technogenesis and technology extension theories, and lastly the posthuman cyborg resulting from advances in biotechnology. I argue that this posthuman cyborg is an enmeshed network of biological and informatic code with neither having primacy. Building upon Anthony Miccoli, I see the interface (the space in between) as a functional myth, as humans are mutually constituted by material, biological, technological and social substrates of a networked ecology. I, then, reconfigure Kenneth Burke’s identification theory for the technological age and argue that the posthuman subject consubstantiates with the substrates, (or substances), to continuously invent a fluid intersubjectivity in a networked ecology. This project, then, explores both metaphorical and technological interfaces to better understand each. I argue that interfacing is a more thorough term to understand how humans, technologies, objects, spaces, language and code interact and thus constitute what we conceptualize as “human” and “reality.” This framework dismantles the interface as a space in between in favor of a networked ecology of dynamic relations. Then, I examine technological interfaces and their development as they have moved from the desktop to touchscreens to spaces wherein the body becomes a literal interface and site of interaction. These developments require rhetoric and composition scholars to interrogate not only the discourse of technologies but the interfaces themselves if we are to fully understand how human users come to identify with technologies that shape not only our communication but also our sense of subjectivity, autonomy, agency and intentionality. To make my claims clearer, I analyze science fiction representations of interfaces to chart more accessible means through which to understand the larger philosophical arcs in posthuman theory, intentionality as well as artificial intelligence. Using the films, then, this work seeks to elucidate the complexities of relations in the networked ecologies that define how we understand ourselves and the world in which we live

Cyborg Ontology and Politics in Intelligent Nation Singapore

Master'sMASTER OF ART

Space, people, networks:exploring the relationship between built structures and seamless wireless communication infrastructures

In this thesis, I investigate wireless communication from an architectural perspective. I am using design prototypes to explore possibilities for interaction and designing with wirelessness in mind. The public primarily regards wireless networking technology as a technical infrastructure that should provide a seamless flow of information across a network of base stations, access points and mobile devices. From this perspective, wireless infrastructure is evaluated in terms of network availability and speed, and is continuously optimised. Researchers explored some other perspectives on wireless communication technology: they used computational spatial analysis to measure signal propagation in space. Some ethnographic studies explored its effect on the use of public space. Wireless connectivity was also explored through the philosophical framework of radical empiricism. All this points to the fact that wireless network infrastructure is a complex topic, spanning multiple fields of expertise and interest (engineering, architecture, urban studies but also sociology and philosophy). It is rarely explored from a plural perspective, as each study typically focuses on the one aspect within its expertise. I propose a more complex view of wireless connectivity, encompassing these different perspectives through an intellectual framework that is based on the notion of architecturality. Architecturality, a property common to all architecture but exceeding the limits of built artefacts, is a measure of the effect something has on the experience of space. Through the lens of the built environment, I expose the complex transactions that take place between networks, people and space. In order to evaluate architecturality of wireless communication signals, I conducted a series of practical design experiments, involving people and interactive installations, and using data gathered from mobile devices and wireless access points. The design of these experiments relies on the principles described by human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers as seamful design. Seamful design reveals underlying structures and relationships behind what appears as a utilitarian infrastructure. The design experiments contribute to the discussion on the use of design artefacts in practice-based research methodologies, thus challenging the different agents of knowledge production and the superiority of established research traditions. The insights gained from this complex examination of wireless networks are important for architectural design, as a way to account more adequately for signal propagation through buildings. The experience of internalising wireless networks in the process of design engenders a designerâs sensitivity towards the presence of wireless communications in space. This sensitivity, similar to the one we have for the distribution of natural and artificial lighting, will be needed in the ever more challenging design of the built environment. The sensible designer can account for, and envision, more dynamic environments that are able to accommodate change and information in completely new ways