Context-Aware Scenarios : Course on Context-Aware Computing 2003

According to a recent definition by Dey and Abowd context is any information that can be used to characterize the situation of an entity. An entity is a person, place or object that is considered relevant to the interaction between a user and an application, including the user and the application themselves. A system is context-aware if it uses context to provide relevant information and/or services to the user, where relevancy depends on the user's task. The following report contains ten scenarios about how context-aware applications could affect ordinary persons in fifteen years. The scenarios have been written by students participating in a course on context-aware computing in the autumn of 2003.Peer reviewe

The Next Familiar

Using a speculative design foresight approach, this study explores the rapidly developing area of wearable, implantable and ingestible technologies, and how they might influence us over the next several decades. The authors have combined traditional research methods such as literature review and expert interviews; foresight methods, such as environmental scanning, trends analysis and scenario creation; and narrative, imagery and conjecture to produce an evocative account of future possibilities in the realm of the tools we keep and use close to and inside our bodies

A Future Archaeology of the Mobile Telecoms Industry.

In 2000, five consortia spent twenty billion pounds on UK radio spectrum licences for 3rd Generation mobile telephony or '3G'. They were investing in a future, in a specific story of the future, a story of ubiquitous wireless telecommunications. The thesis addresses questions raised in social studies of science and technology as to how such a future is made in everyday practices inside the industry, and how this future might be made otherwise. The research draws on Donna Haraway's method of 'interference' into the making of technoscientific knowledge. Rather than simply critique the future of the mobile telecoms industry, the thesis develops two methods that enact two different interferences into the making of the future in the industry. Both methods begin with a four month ethnography at a design studio of a major mobile phone manufacturer, extended interviews with key informants throughout the industry, and a substantial documentary archive. This forms a necessarily partial and fragmentary set of evidence from which multiple accounts may be reconstructed. The first method is ethnographic, and draws on the evidence to form an account of the industry and its futures situated close to London. The second method is archaeological, and draws on the evidence to form an account of the industry and its futures situated close to the 'Heart of Neolithic Orkney' World Heritage Site on the archipelago of Orkney, Scotland - a method of Future Archaeology. Through these two methods the thesis explores and demonstrates the effect of location and landscape on the making of the future in the mobile telecoms industry. And it demonstrates the important role of writing-as-method within social studies of science and technology

Cinema Fabriqué : a gestural environment for realtime video performance

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (p. [107]-[108]).This thesis presents an environment that enables a single person to improvise video and audio programming in real time through gesture control. The goal of this system is to provide the means to compose and edit video stories for a live audience with an interface that is exposed and engaging to watch. Many of the software packages used today for realtime audio-visual performance were not built with this use in mind, and have been repurposed or modified with plug-ins to meet the performer's needs. Also, these applications are typically controlled by standard keyboard, mouse, or MIDI inputs, which were not designed for precise video control or live spectacle. As an alternative I built a system called Cinema Fabriqué which integrates video editing and effects software and hand gesture tracking methods into a single system for audio-visual performance.by Justin Manor.S.M

Future of Wireless Data Communication

This thesis develops four scenarios, illustrating the future of wireless data communication

Semi-automatic video object segmentation for multimedia applications

A semi-automatic video object segmentation tool is presented for segmenting both still pictures and image sequences. The approach comprises both automatic segmentation algorithms and manual user interaction. The still image segmentation component is comprised of a conventional spatial segmentation algorithm (Recursive Shortest Spanning Tree (RSST)), a hierarchical segmentation representation method (Binary Partition Tree (BPT)), and user interaction. An initial segmentation partition of homogeneous regions is created using RSST. The BPT technique is then used to merge these regions and hierarchically represent the segmentation in a binary tree. The semantic objects are then manually built by selectively clicking on image regions. A video object-tracking component enables image sequence segmentation, and this subsystem is based on motion estimation, spatial segmentation, object projection, region classification, and user interaction. The motion between the previous frame and the current frame is estimated, and the previous object is then projected onto the current partition. A region classification technique is used to determine which regions in the current partition belong to the projected object. User interaction is allowed for object re-initialisation when the segmentation results become inaccurate. The combination of all these components enables offline video sequence segmentation. The results presented on standard test sequences illustrate the potential use of this system for object-based coding and representation of multimedia

Visions of Electric Media

*Visions of Electric Media* is an historical examination into the early history of television, as it was understood during the Victorian and Machine ages. How did the television that we use today develop into a functional technology? What did Victorians expect it to become? How did the 'vision' of television change once viewers could actually see pictures on a screen? We will journey through the history of 'television': from the first indications of live communications in technology and culture in the late nineteenth century, to the development of electronic televisual systems in the early twentieth century. Along the way, we will investigate the philosophy, folklore, engineering practices, and satires that went into making television a useful medium