Mapping, sensing and visualising the digital co-presence in the public arena

This paper reports on work carried out within the Cityware project using mobile technologies to map, visualise and project the digital co-presence in the city. This paper focuses on two pilot studies exploring the Bluetooth landscape in the city of Bath. Here we apply adapted and ‘digitally augmented’ methods for spatial observation and analysis based on established methods used extensively in the space syntax approach to urban design. We map the physical and digital flows at a macro level and observe static space use at the micro level. In addition we look at social and mobile behaviour from an individual’s point of view. We apply a method based on intervention through ‘Sensing and projecting’ Bluetooth names and digital identity in the public arena. We present early findings in terms of patterns of Bluetooth flow and presence, and outline initial observations about how people’s reaction towards the projection of their Bluetooth names practices in public. In particular we note the importance of constructing socially meaningful relations between people mediated by these technologies. We discuss initial results and outline issues raised in detail before finally describing ongoing work

Privacy, security, and trust issues in smart environments

Recent advances in networking, handheld computing and sensor technologies have driven forward research towards the realisation of Mark Weiser's dream of calm and ubiquitous computing (variously called pervasive computing, ambient computing, active spaces, the disappearing computer or context-aware computing). In turn, this has led to the emergence of smart environments as one significant facet of research in this domain. A smart environment, or space, is a region of the real world that is extensively equipped with sensors, actuators and computing components [1]. In effect the smart space becomes a part of a larger information system: with all actions within the space potentially affecting the underlying computer applications, which may themselves affect the space through the actuators. Such smart environments have tremendous potential within many application areas to improve the utility of a space. Consider the potential offered by a smart environment that prolongs the time an elderly or infirm person can live an independent life or the potential offered by a smart environment that supports vicarious learning

Animal-Computer Interaction: a Manifesto (2011) and sections from Towards an Animal-Centred Ethics for Animal-Computer Interaction (2016)

Reprint of journal article "Animal-Computer Interaction: a Manifesto" (2011) and of sections of journal article "Towards an Animal-Centred Ethics for Animal-Computer Interaction" (2016

Supporting Device Discovery and Spontaneous Interaction with Spatial References

The RELATE interaction model is designed to support spontaneous interaction of mobile users with devices and services in their environment. The model is based on spatial references that capture the spatial relationship of a user’s device with other co-located devices. Spatial references are obtained by relative position sensing and integrated in the mobile user interface to spatially visualize the arrangement of discovered devices, and to provide direct access for interaction across devices. In this paper we discuss two prototype systems demonstrating the utility of the model in collaborative and mobile settings, and present a study on usability of spatial list and map representations for device selection

Privacy, Visibility, Transparency, and Exposure

This essay considers the relationship between privacy and visibility in the networked information age. Visibility is an important determinant of harm to privacy, but a persistent tendency to conceptualize privacy harms and expectations in terms of visibility has created two problems. First, focusing on visibility diminishes the salience and obscures the operation of nonvisual mechanisms designed to render individual identity, behavior, and preferences transparent to third parties. The metaphoric mapping to visibility suggests that surveillance is simply passive observation, rather than the active production of categories, narratives, and, norms. Second, even a broader conception of privacy harms as a function of informational transparency is incomplete. Privacy has a spatial dimension as well as an informational dimension. The spatial dimension of the privacy interest, which the author characterizes as an interest in avoiding or selectively limiting exposure, concerns the structure of experienced space. It is not negated by the fact that people in public spaces expect to be visible to others present in those spaces, and it encompasses both the arrangement of physical spaces and the design of networked communications technologies. U.S. privacy law and theory currently do not recognize this interest at all. This essay argues that they should

An architecture for certification-aware service discovery

Service-orientation is an emerging paradigm for building complex systems based on loosely coupled components, deployed and consumed over the network. Despite the original intent of the paradigm, its current instantiations are limited to a single trust domain (e.g., a single organization). Also, some of the key promises of service-orientation - such as the dynamic orchestration of externally provided software services, using runtime service discovery and deployment - are still unachieved. One of the main reasons for this is the trust gap that normally arises when software services, offered by previously unknown providers, are to be selected at run-time, without any human intervention. To close this gap, the concept of machine-readable security certificates (called asserts) has been recently introduced, which paves the way to automated processing about security properties of services. Similarly to current security certification schemes, the assessment of the security properties of a service is delegated to an independent third party (certification authority), who issues a corresponding assert, bound to the service. In this paper, we propose an architecture, which exploits the assert concept to realise a certification-aware service discovery framework. The architecture supports the discovery of single services based on certified security properties (in additional to the usual functional properties), as well as the dynamic synthesis of service compositions, that satisfy the given security properties. The architecture is extensible, thus allowing for a range of domain specific matchmaking components, to cover dimensions related to, e.g., performance, cost and other non-functional characteristics

When Things Matter: A Data-Centric View of the Internet of Things

With the recent advances in radio-frequency identification (RFID), low-cost wireless sensor devices, and Web technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT) approach has gained momentum in connecting everyday objects to the Internet and facilitating machine-to-human and machine-to-machine communication with the physical world. While IoT offers the capability to connect and integrate both digital and physical entities, enabling a whole new class of applications and services, several significant challenges need to be addressed before these applications and services can be fully realized. A fundamental challenge centers around managing IoT data, typically produced in dynamic and volatile environments, which is not only extremely large in scale and volume, but also noisy, and continuous. This article surveys the main techniques and state-of-the-art research efforts in IoT from data-centric perspectives, including data stream processing, data storage models, complex event processing, and searching in IoT. Open research issues for IoT data management are also discussed

Is Ambient Intelligence a truly Human-Centric Paradigm in Industry? Current Research and Application Scenario

The use of pervasive networked devices is nowadays a reality in the service sector. It impacts almost all aspects of our daily lives, although most times we are not aware of its influence. This is a fundamental characteristic of the concept of Ambient Intelligence (AmI). Ambient Intelligence aims to change the form of human-computer interaction, focusing on the user needs so they can interact in a more seamless way, with emphasis on greater user-friendliness. The idea of recognizing people and their context situation is not new and has been successfully applied with limitations, for instance, in the health and military sectors. However its appearance in the manufacturing industry has been elusive. Could the concept of AmI turn the current shop floor into a truly human centric environment enabling comprehensive reaction to human presence and action? In this article an AmI scenario is presented and detailed with applications in human’s integrity and safety.Ambient Intelligence, networks, human-computer interaction

Using a qualitative approach to explore the human response to vibration in residential environments in the United Kingdom

As a growing number of areas in the UK become ever more densely populated, increasing construction work is being undertaken and transportation networks built in order to cope with the growing population. The development of this infrastructure, coupled with the mechanisation of modern life, often results in exposure to various types of vibration from a range of sources such as rail, road traffic and construction activity causing considerable disturbance. The study of vibration effects within residential settings is a developing area of research. Previous research on ambient stressors in residential environments has focused primarily on noise; one of the most prevalent environmental stressors in living environments. Some noise surveys have highlighted vibration as a contributor to noise annoyance while others have explored the combined effects of noise and vibration on human response. Research on vibration is largely a quantitative effort using laboratory experiments or social surveys with associated vibration measurements in order to establish dose-response relationships. However, as the human response to vibration is particularly diverse and complex this paper aims to explore how qualitative methodologies can compliment the quantitative approach to vibration research. People’s experiences, expectations and attitudes vary with regards to vibration, the noise it produces, and the source it derives from. For the pragmatic researcher qualitative methodologies can help unravel some of these issues, providing a further understanding of the complexities of the human response to vibration in residential environments