29,923 research outputs found
WLAN Location Sharing through a Privacy Observant Architecture
In the last few years, WLAN has seen immense growth and it will continue this trend due to the fact that it provides convenient connectivity as well as high speed links. Furthermore, the infrastructure already exists in most public places and is cheap to extend. These advantages, together with the fact that WLAN covers a large area and is not restricted to line of sight, have led to developing many WLAN localization techniques and applications based on them. In this paper we present a novel calibration-free localization technique using the existing WLAN infrastructure that enables conference participants to determine their location without the need of a centralized system. The evaluation results illustrate the superiority of our technique compared to existing methods. In addition, we present a privacy observant architecture to share location information. We handle both the location of people and the resources in the infrastructure as services, which can be easily discovered and used. An important design issue for us was to avoid tracking people and giving the users control over who they share their location information with and under which conditions
Context Aware Computing for The Internet of Things: A Survey
As we are moving towards the Internet of Things (IoT), the number of sensors
deployed around the world is growing at a rapid pace. Market research has shown
a significant growth of sensor deployments over the past decade and has
predicted a significant increment of the growth rate in the future. These
sensors continuously generate enormous amounts of data. However, in order to
add value to raw sensor data we need to understand it. Collection, modelling,
reasoning, and distribution of context in relation to sensor data plays
critical role in this challenge. Context-aware computing has proven to be
successful in understanding sensor data. In this paper, we survey context
awareness from an IoT perspective. We present the necessary background by
introducing the IoT paradigm and context-aware fundamentals at the beginning.
Then we provide an in-depth analysis of context life cycle. We evaluate a
subset of projects (50) which represent the majority of research and commercial
solutions proposed in the field of context-aware computing conducted over the
last decade (2001-2011) based on our own taxonomy. Finally, based on our
evaluation, we highlight the lessons to be learnt from the past and some
possible directions for future research. The survey addresses a broad range of
techniques, methods, models, functionalities, systems, applications, and
middleware solutions related to context awareness and IoT. Our goal is not only
to analyse, compare and consolidate past research work but also to appreciate
their findings and discuss their applicability towards the IoT.Comment: IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials Journal, 201
Future wireless applications for a networked city: services for visitors and residents
Future wireless networks will offer near-ubiquitous high-bandwidth communications to mobile users. In addition, the accurate position of users will be known, either through network services or via additional sensing devices such as GPS. These characteristics of future mobile environments will enable the development of location-aware and, more generally, context-sensitive applications. In an attempt to explore the system, application, and user issues associated with the development and deployment of such applications, we began to develop the Lancaster GUIDE system in early 1997, finishing the first phase of the project in 1999. In its entirety, GUIDE comprises a citywide wireless network based on 802.11, a context-sensitive tour guide application with, crucially, significant content, and a set of supporting distributed systems services. Uniquely in the field, GUIDE has been evaluated using members of the general public, and we have gained significant experience in the design of usable context-sensitive applications. We focus on the applications and supporting infrastructure that will form part of GUIDE II, the successor to the GUIDE system. These developments are designed to expand GUIDE outside the tour guide domain, and to provide applications and services for residents of the city of Lancaster, offering a vision of the future mobile environments that will emerge once ubiquitous high-bandwidth coverage is available in most cities
Transforming pedagogy using mobile Web 2.0
Blogs, wikis, podcasting, and a host of free, easy to use Web 2.0 social software provide opportunities for creating social constructivist learning environments focusing on student-centred learning and end-user content creation and sharing.
Building on this foundation, mobile Web 2.0 has emerged as a viable teaching and learning tool, facilitating engaging learning environments that bridge multiple
contexts. Today’s dual 3G and wifi-enabled smartphones provide a ubiquitous connection to mobile Web 2.0 social software and the ability to view, create, edit,
upload, and share user generated Web 2.0 content. This article outlines how a Product Design course has moved from a traditional face-to-face, studio-based learning
environment to one using mobile Web 2.0 technologies to enhance and engage students in a social constructivist learning paradigm.
Keywords: m-learning; Web 2.0; pedagogy 2.0; social constructivism; product desig
Mobile Computing in Digital Ecosystems: Design Issues and Challenges
In this paper we argue that the set of wireless, mobile devices (e.g.,
portable telephones, tablet PCs, GPS navigators, media players) commonly used
by human users enables the construction of what we term a digital ecosystem,
i.e., an ecosystem constructed out of so-called digital organisms (see below),
that can foster the development of novel distributed services. In this context,
a human user equipped with his/her own mobile devices, can be though of as a
digital organism (DO), a subsystem characterized by a set of peculiar features
and resources it can offer to the rest of the ecosystem for use from its peer
DOs. The internal organization of the DO must address issues of management of
its own resources, including power consumption. Inside the DO and among DOs,
peer-to-peer interaction mechanisms can be conveniently deployed to favor
resource sharing and data dissemination. Throughout this paper, we show that
most of the solutions and technologies needed to construct a digital ecosystem
are already available. What is still missing is a framework (i.e., mechanisms,
protocols, services) that can support effectively the integration and
cooperation of these technologies. In addition, in the following we show that
that framework can be implemented as a middleware subsystem that enables novel
and ubiquitous forms of computation and communication. Finally, in order to
illustrate the effectiveness of our approach, we introduce some experimental
results we have obtained from preliminary implementations of (parts of) that
subsystem.Comment: Proceedings of the 7th International wireless Communications and
Mobile Computing conference (IWCMC-2011), Emergency Management: Communication
and Computing Platforms Worksho
- …