Posts tagged internet of things

CFP: CHI Workshop on Studying Technology in the Home (due Jan 11)

This CHI 2013 workshop will explore the methods used to study our interactions with technology in home contexts. We will share practices, identify key issues and potential for innovations in this space.

Position papers due January 11, 2013. Methods for Studying Technology in the Home, ACM CHI, April 27th, 2013, Palais de Congrès, Paris, France.

Full call: http://studyingthehome.wp.horizon.ac.uk/call-for-participation/

MORE – Technology is becoming ever more integral to our home lives, and visions such as ubiquitous computing, smart technologies and the Internet of Things represent a further stage of this development. However studying interactions and experiences in the home, and drawing understanding from this to inform design, is a substantial challenge for many researchers in Human-Computer Interaction and other disciplines. […]

We invite contributions from researchers working in areas including, but not restricted to:

• Ethnographic or observational studies in homes, including dormitories and shared buildings
• Approaches to exploring design through narratives, e.g. scenarios or user enactments
• Prototype design and evaluation studies using field trials in homes, lab studies and smart home demonstrators built for research purposes
• Living Lab and action research approaches to innovation related to the home
• Automated approaches to capturing or analysing quantitative data about activities in the home
• Application areas such as medical, assistive and e-health technologies, media and entertainment, smart appliances, smart grids, behaviour change, technologies for families, children and the elderly, home automation and many others where the home is a key context of use.

Call for Book Chapters: Hyperconnectivity and the Future of Internet Communication

Over the past few decades, there has been a revolution in computing and communication. This book will examine and expose future internet communication technologies and telexistence paradigms to allow a hyperconnected presence of all our five senses, as well as non-verbal and emotional communication, through digital networks and the physical world of humans and devices/gadgets.

Proposals Submission Deadline: December 15, 2012

Publisher: IGI Global.

Editor: Adrian David Cheok (Keio University, Tokyo, Japan)

Read the full call.

Aca-article: Take Me I’m Yours - Mimicking object agency (on IoT)

Through a design demonstration, this paper speculates upon a future context in which objects will begin to talk to us and even give us instructions. The purpose of the research is to anticipate a time when correlations between the data sets that are associated with different objects are found and the objects themselves are used to impart this ‘new’ knowledge back to us.

Authors: Chris Speed and Duncan Shingleton

ABSTRACT - […] Located within the technical and cultural context of the Internet of Things, this paper introduces a lineage for our relationship with objects from 1. Read Only, 2. Read and Write and 3. Read, Write and Act. The paper proceeds to establish the conditions for a third generation of Internet of Things by articulating the nature of networks, their structure and their capacity to support the principles of Actor-Network Theory which may lead to a condition in which objects may take on a form of agency.

The paper further introduces an iPhone App entitled Take Me I’m Yours that operates as a working but speculative design project mimicking the conditions in which objects may talk to us. The designers speculate a design fiction in which object databases may begin to identify associations and propose ‘actions’ to a user. The application and demonstration at UbiComp 2012 will offer delegates an opportunity to experience a sense of what it may feel like in the future when objects may begin telling us what to do.

Open access: http://fields.eca.ac.uk/?p=942

Aca-article: A manifesto for do-it-yourself internet-of-things creation

This paper presents a manifesto directed at developers and designers of internet-of-things creation platforms, aiming at providing a framework for do-it-yourself systems enabling non-technical users to create internet-of-things applications.

Authors: Dries De Roeck, Karin Slegers, Johan Criel, Marc Godon, Laurence Claeys,
Katriina Kilpi, An Jacobs

Presented at NordiCHI ‘12

Open access: http://www.kuleuven.ac.be/facdep/social/com/mediac/cuo/admin/upload/IdDiYSEforit_CRv2.pdf

ABSTRACT - This paper presents a manifesto directed at developers and designers of internet-of-things creation platforms. Currently, most existing creation platforms are tailored to specific types of end-users, mostly people with a substantial background in or affinity with technology. The thirteen items presented in the manifesto however, resulted from several user studies including non-technical users, and highlight aspects that should be taken into account in order to open up internet-of-things creation to a wider audience. To reach out and involve more people in internet-of-things creation, a relation is made to the social phenomenon of doit-yourself, which provides valuable insights into how society can be encouraged to get involved in creation activities. Most importantly, the manifesto aims at providing a framework for do-it-yourself systems enabling non-technical users to create internet-of-things applications.

Aca-articles: Future Internet - Social Transformations from the Mobile Internet

Here’s the introduction the special issue on Social Transformations from the Mobile Internet published in the open-access journal Future Internet.

http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/4/2/545/htm

ABSTRACT - The social transformations brought about by the mobile internet are extensive. In discussing the broad range of these transformations—positioned as a shift from personal computing to pervasive computing—this editorial elaborates on the key contributions addressed by the articles in this special issue of Future Internet. These articles touch on topics such as the digital divide, the role of the mobile internet in revolutions like the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movement, the development of site-specific and context-aware news, the incorporation of the internet into existing technologies like the automobile, and the utilization of the mobile internet to transform everyday spaces into game spaces. 

Go read it in full: http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/4/2/545/htm

Aca-article: How to Co-Create Internet of Things-enabled Services for Smarter Cities

Paper on the “future of smart cities”.

Authors: Sauro Vicini, Sara Bellini, Alberto Sanna, eServices for Life and Health, Milano, Italy.

Published in SMART 2012: The First International Conference on Smart Systems, Devices and Technologies.

Other papers from the conference can be accessed here.

ABSTRACT - What is the future of Smart Cities? The San Raffaele Scientific Institute (HSR)’s eServices for Life and Health unit in Milan strives to explore and push the boundaries of the Smart City concept through the ideation and implementation of smart services. Often, these services achieve their highest potential through Internet of Things, which enable the constituents of these services (users, products, environments) to be interconnected. In order to examine the dynamics between users, service touchpoints and Internet of Things, HSR decided to develop a methodology within a Living Lab framework and set up the City of the Future Living Lab. The City of the Future Living Lab is both a virtual and real research environment and community and embodies a Smart City (indeed it contains a university, laboratories, a hospital, offices, shops, a supermarket, post-offices, streets, parks, a light rail train and bus service, numerous ICTs, etc.). It therefore has exposure to all users and consumers of a city. This paper focuses on delivering an overview of the Living Lab methodology and the way it brings together people, environments, ICT and Internet of Things in the creation of e-Services designed by and around the end user. The paper presents the methodology and tools implemented for all the phases of the Living Lab process and presents the case of Living Labs as user-driven open innovation ecosystems for services for future Smarter Cities.

Open access article: http://www.thinkmind.org/index.php?view=article&articleid=smart_2012_2_50_40077

Conference on Internet of Things (Paris, Sep 26)

This conference, gathering academics and professionals, will address both ongoing developments and legal and standardization issues related to the Internet of Things.

When and where: Sep 26, 2012, Paris, France. Read more.

MORE - The conference will see the release of the new issue of Communications & Strategies entitled Internet of Things: A new avenue of research, here’s what they write about it:

The Internet of Things (IoT) endows objects with intelligence and ability to communicate, connecting people and machines anywhere, anytime. IoT applications exist in various domains: health, domotics, security and control, the supply chain. IoT exemplifies - and is driven by - major changes in technological convergence, pervasiveness and ubiquity, increases in mobility, traceability, and so on. This special issue aims to develop a better understanding of what the Internet of Things is and what its potential impacts may be. This Dossier includes contributions from different fields of research in order to grasp the various dimensions of IoT in a multidisciplinary perspective (law, economics and management, political science, etc.). With also two interviews with Rudolf van der BERG, Economist & Policy Analyst at OECD, and Nicolas PAUVRE, Innovation Project Manager at GS1 France.

Aca-article; Thingies for Dummies - A smart home infrastructure for the rest of us

In this paper, the authors introduce an infrastructure that enables end-users to bring simple smart home devices into their homes and install them. The infrastructure makes use of equipment already present in many homes – Wi-Fi networks and smartphones – and is based on common web technologies.

Authors: David Thomas, Egil Hansen, both IT University of Copenhagen

Published in: undisclosed.

ABSTRACT- A number of smart home infrastructures and technologies exist. However, these are not commonly adopted by homeowners as they are often too expensive, complex and difficult to retrofit in existing homes. We introduce an infrastructure that enables end-users to bring simple smart home devices into their homes and install them. Our infrastructure makes use of equipment already present in many homes – Wi-Fi networks and smartphones – and is based on common web technologies. We include a bootstrapping process to connect UI-less devices to Wi-Fi networks, and an approach to generate user interfaces for these devices. We have evaluated our designed infrastructure via a user test of an implemented prototype, and our evaluation participants found the prototype easy to install and use overall.

Access paper, open access: https://blog.itu.dk/SPCL-F2012/files/2012/06/5thingiesfordummies.pdf

Conference: City of Flows - Interdisciplinary Perspectives On The Digital City and Analog Spaces (12-14 July, Potsdam, DE)

How can cities be sustainably designed and developed without losing sight of the needs of their residents? What roles are played by analog spaces and local commitment? Which options are generated by the global use of digital technologies? How and where can these digital and analog opportunities be connected to each other?

These are some of the questions under consideration at the international conference City of Flows, taking place from the 12th to the 14th of July 2012 in, Potsdam, Germany.

Read more and register:

http://www.stadt-der-stroeme.de/en/

What is so smart about the “smart” city? Deconstructing Smart Cities.

This paper analyses recent contributions to the ‘smart city’ discourse, the context conditions under which it has emerged, the conceptual orientations developed, and the implementation strategies derived. It remains rather open what the actual pursuit of a ‘smart city’ is, and therefore, which winners and losers we are to expect from realization.

Title: Deconstructing Smart Cities: An Intertextual Reading of Concepts and Practices for Integrated Urban and ICT Development.

Author: Marc Wolfram, Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development, Dresden, Germany.

Published in proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Urban Planning and Regional Development in the Information Society GeoMultimedia 2012.

Open access: http://programm.corp.at/cdrom2012/papers2012/CORP2012_192.pdf

ABSTRACT - Concepts of ‘smart’ or ‘intelligent’ cities currently enjoy great popularity. They offer frameworks for interpreting certain linkages between information and communication technology (ICT) and urban development, and put forward a particular agenda for action. In this, they claim a broad legitimacy for guiding stakeholders, drawing on findings from a number of strands of scientific inquiry. Furthermore, building on the everlasting albeit problematic promise of technology as a key to resolve pressing societal problems, they equally constitute an attractive reference for actors at all levels and across sectors. But despite their striking virulence in research, policy and practice, it remains rather open what the actual pursuit of a ‘smart city’ is, and therefore, which winners and losers we are to expect from realization.

Against this backdrop this paper puts forward an intertextual reading of recent contributions to the ‘smart city’ discourse, probing in particular the context conditions under which it has emerged, the conceptual orientations developed, and the implementation strategies derived. It appears that, while suffering from affinities to technological determinism and urban entrepreneurialism, ‘smart cities’ largely neglect the need to select and balance goals for integrated urban and ICT development, and to develop suitable approaches for actually doing so. Instead, by conflating the descriptive and the normative, ‘smart cities’ tend to substitute an orientation at societal ends by an orientation at selected means, thus supporting path optimization but structurally evading radical urban change. Hence, in order to become meaningful for enhancing sustainable and resilient local development, such concepts need to be embedded within a much wider cultural change perspective that should underpin especially the social, ecological and political dimensions of ‘smart’ urban development. In particular, they need to strengthen their focus on and engagement with the governance of integrated urban and ICT development.