Designing ambient intelligent scenarios to promote discussion of human values

Ambient technology evokes a near future in which humans will be surrounded by ‘always-on’, unobtrusive, interconnected intelligent objects. Always connected raises concern over human values. This study uses a privacy and trust framework to evaluate two Aml scenarios one health related and the other to the everyday task of shopping. Findings are discussed in relation to dimensions of trust, privacy and the impact upon human values

Using Ubicomp systems for exchanging health information : considering trust and privacy issues

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) and ubiquitous computing allow us to consider a future where computation is embedded into our daily social lives. This vision raises its own important questions and augments the need to understand how people will trust such systems and at the same time achieve and maintain privacy. As a result, we have recently conducted a wide reaching study of people’s attitudes to potential AmI scenarios. This research project investigates the concepts of trust and privacy issues specifically related to the exchange of health, financial, shopping and e-voting information when using AmI system. The method used in the study and findings related to the health scenario will be discussed in this paper and discussed in terms of motivation and social implications

MP-Collaborator: a mobile collaboration tool in pervasive environment

“Copyright © [2009] IEEE. Reprinted from 5th International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications. WIMOB 2009. ISBN: 978-0-7695-3841-9 . This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to [email protected]. By choosing to view this document, you agree to all provisions of the copyright laws protecting it.”In modern organizations, the communication between collaborators is essential to improve productivity. There is a need for mobile collaboration tools that allow efficient collaboration among staff in organization which may be located in different geographical areas and time zones. Mobile and pervasive computing provides easy and convenient access to information, enabling effective collaboration. This paper describes a context and location-aware mobile application, called MP-Collaborator, created to improve and optimize the communication between collaborators in any organization. MP- Collaborator draws information from location, user status and Pocket Outlook Calendar to create a user availability profile, which is published to any other user in the network. Based on availability status, the user can be reached using a simple phone call or a message. Through the opportunistic use of available mobile technologies MP-Collaborator provides a simple but critical service - user presence service. The proposed solution is validated both in terms of features and communication through a series of experiments on real devices through Wi-Fi network

Technology Overload: Is There a Technological Panacea?

While developments in technology have made computing and electronics ubiquitous and wearable, they have also given rise to a plethora of devices each delivering a special functionality. Numerous appliances and gadgets may overwhelm us, leading to Technology Overload, the cognitive and physical burden placed on human beings due to usage of multiple devices for everyday activities. While research into the design of devices has concentrated on making each separate feature/ functionality of a device more efficient and effective, (such as enhancing the resolution of cameras or improving the portability of a mobile phone) or integrating a few functionalities at a time (such as PDA-phones, cell phone-cameras etc), little work has been done to systematically determine which features and functionalities should be placed in which device/s in order to reduce technology overload. This paper discusses technology overload and explores the implications of current and proposed solutions to help ease it

Examining User Technology Interaction: Toward a Sociotechnical Theory for Understanding User Adjustment to Mobile Technologies

Researchers from organization, management, and information systems areas have studied the impact of information technology (IT) on users in organizations for several decades. As a form of emerging technology, mobile computing has raised new research directions, as well as challenges for both computer scientists and social scientists. In this paper, we explore the issues of how well the emerging mobile computing technologies conform to past models and predictions that have been offered for explaining the impacts of IT. In particular, this paper identifies the general lack of attention to individual-level differences that may interact with contextual factors to shape organizational users’ reactions to this new computing paradigm. We thus propose that IS researchers consider a specific sociotechnical theory – Theory of Work Adjustment (TWA) – to investigate how individual users adjust to technology-initiated changes in work practices resulting from mobile technologies. By highlighting the insights offered by TWA, we believe that this model is useful for analyzing individual responses to the adoption of mobile computing technologies

Does Mutual Knowledge Affect Virtual Team Performance? Theoretical Analysis and Anecdotal Evidence

This paper describes the concept of mutual knowledge and its potential impact on virtual team performance. Based on an analysis of extant literature, we argue that there is a gap in our understanding of what is known about mutual knowledge as it impacts team dynamics and virtual team performance. Supporting literature, anecdotes, and case studies are used to discuss the importance of mutual knowledge for virtual team performance and the research issues that need to be addressed in the future

Trust and Privacy Permissions for an Ambient World

Ambient intelligence (AmI) and ubiquitous computing allow us to consider a future where computation is embedded into our daily social lives. This vision raises its own important questions and augments the need to understand how people will trust such systems and at the same time achieve and maintain privacy. As a result, we have recently conducted a wide reaching study of people’s attitudes to potential AmI scenarios with a view to eliciting their privacy concerns. This chapter describes recent research related to privacy and trust with regard to ambient technology. The method used in the study is described and findings discussed

Value perception in music information systems

When referring to the value that IS adds to business and provides to consumers, we often (implicitly or explicitly) pertain to monetary value. However, perspectives exist regarding the notion of value which go beyond the monetary significance and maintain a direct influence on businesses and their performance. This paper explores the concept of value, its importance in IS, and the importance of understanding of how IS stakeholders perceive value. The paper focuses on the challenge of studying value in IS -although value manifests in properties of an information system, it can only be experienced and perceived subjectively through sense perception, experience and judgement of the system stakeholders. To address this challenge, the paper suggests the existence of a clearly shifting trend in the perception of IS technology and comments on the social impacts of end-users (consumers) being absorbed into the value-creation process for an information system in the music industry.<br /

Snow, Buses, and Mobile Data Services

Development and advancement of Information Society in on agenda of many nation states today. As scholars, we can contribute to the effort by attempting to reconcile the official rhetoric with the real life situations of citizens.Triggered by an observation of social behavior of public transport passengers during one of the winter bus drivers\u27 strike day in the City of Copenhagen, this case study attempts to reveal the extent to which advanced mobile data services are used by the population. This study adds to the growing awareness that the success of establishing Information Society should not be measured by the number of available services to citizens over the wireline and mobile Internet. Drawing on theories of social learning, sensemaking, and ethnographical studies of infrastructure, we are attempting to answer the question “why people do not use advanced data services in situations when the use of such services is perceived as important?â