A Framework for Abstracting, Designing And

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

A Framework for Abstracting, Designing And Department of Informatics University of Fribourg (Switzerland) A FRAMEWORK FOR ABSTRACTING, DESIGNING AND BUILDING TANGIBLE GESTURE INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS THESIS presented to the Faculty of Science, University of Fribourg (Switzerland) in consideration for the award of the academic grade of Doctor Scientiarum Informaticarum by Leonardo Angelini from Terni (Italy) Thesis No: 2003 UniPrint, Fribourg 2017 Accepted by the Faculty of Science of the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) upon the recommendation of Prof. Denis Lalanne, University of Fribourg, Switzerland (Thesis Director) Prof. Elena Mugellini, University of Applied Sciences and Arts WesternSwitzerland, Switzerland (Thesis Co-Advisor) Prof. Philippe Cudre-Mauroux, University of Fribourg, Switzerland (Jury President) Prof. Patrizia Marti, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), the Netherlands, and University of Siena, Italy (ExternalExpert) Prof. Lorenzo Sommaruga, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI), Switzerland (ExternalExpert) Fribourg, January 27t11, 2017 Faculty Dean Prof. Christian Bochet Acknowledgments This thesis could not have been accomplished without the help of many people. I owe special thanks to my supervisors, Denis Lalanne from University of Fribourg and Elena Mugellini and Omar Abou Khaled from HumanTech Institute of HES-SO, who supported me throughout this entire thesis and, most important, who allowed me to learn how to stand on my own feet. This was a long but really enriching experience that changed my life and myself, and not only from a professional point of view. For this, I have to thank all the distant relatives, friends and, in particular, my parents, who, more or less quietly, tolerated my physical (and sometimes social) distance. Luckily, I found other friends who made it worth to live in Switzerland, beyond the professional advantages; I would not mention all of you here, but if you feel touched by this message, it surely means you are one of them. A special thank also for Antonio, for all the good time spent walking across Switzerland and beyond. Among all, I need to praise also my flatmates for supporting (and standing) me in the most stressful periods of my thesis. Redina and Manuel in particular, who were present during the thesis writing and fed me with the best delicacies that can be found in Fribourg. I gratefully thank my colleagues, especially Francesco, Stefano and Simon for all the useful discussions we had, for the time enjoyed together while collaborating on common projects and for holding me and catching me up whenever I was falling down (literally). A special mention for Maurizio, who belongs to all the formers, as a friend, colleague, flatmate, et cetera. To conclude, I owe much to Switzerland in general, allowing me to conduct research in an efficient and rewarding country and to the Hasler Foundation in particular, which funded this thesis under the “Living in smart environment” program. However, I think I owe something more to Italy, first, for all the resources spent for forming me before this PhD, and second, as an eternal source of inspiration thanks to all people who live and lived there and that shaped my thoughts and my mind. When I was a child, my aunt Rita was used to sing me a song that says: “if I were Leonardo (da Vinci), how many things I could invent…!”. I am not sure that I invented something that is actually worth my name, but I think I should still be thankful to Leonardo da Vinci for inspiring me as an engineer, inventor and artist, and for drawing the Vitruvian man, source of inspiration of the HumanTech institute. Indeed, this popular image remembers us that humans are at the center of our research and technology is only a support for reaching the human well-being. iii Ringraziamenti Non avrei potuto terminare questa tesi senza l’aiuto di molte persone. Devo ringraziare in particolare i miei supervisori, Denis Lalanne dell’Università di Fribourg ed Elena Mugellini e Omar Abou Khaled dell’Istituto HumanTech della HES-SO, che mi hanno supportato durante tutta la durata di questa tesi, in particolar modo durante le fasi più difficili, permettendomi di imparare a camminare con le mie proprie gambe. Questa tesi è stato un viaggio lungo, ma allo stesso tempo è stata anche un’esperienza che mi ha arricchito molto, che ha cambiato la mia vita e me stesso, e non solo da un punto di vista meramente professionale. Per questo, devo ringraziare tutti i miei parenti e amici lontani, ed in particolar modo i miei genitori, che hanno saputo tollerare con pazienza (chi più, chi meno) la mia distanza fisica e a volte anche sociale. Per fortuna ho potuto trovare altri amici che hanno permesso di rendere piacevole la mia vita in Svizzera, al di là dei vantaggi professionali; non potrò menzionarvi tutti qui, ma se vi sentirete toccati da queste parole, vuol dire sicuramente che site uno di loro. Un ringraziamento speciale per Antonio, per tutti i bei momenti passati camminando per la Svizzera e oltre. Tra gli altri, devo lodare i miei coinquilini per avermi supportato (e sopportato) duranti le fasi più stressanti della tesi. In particolare, Redina e Manuel, che erano presenti durante la fase di scrittura ed ebbero l’accortezza di nutrirmi con le migliori leccornie che si possano trovare a Fribourg. Ringrazio calorosamente tutti i miei colleghi, in particolare, Francesco, Stefano e Simon per tutte le discussioni fatte, per il tempo passato insieme a collaborare in progetti comuni e per sorreggermi e riprendermi tutte le volte che sono caduto. Menzione speciale per Maurizio, che fa parte di tutte le precedenti categorie, come amico, collega, coinquilino, et cetera. Per concludere, devo molto alla Svizzera in generale, che mi ha permesso di portare avanti ricerche in un paese efficiente e gratificante, ed in particolare alla Fondazione Hasler, che ha finanziato questa tesi nel contesto del programma “Vivere negli ambienti intelligenti”. Nondimeno, penso di dovere qualcosa in più all’Italia; prima di tutto, per tutte le risorse impiegate nella mia formazione prima di questo PhD, e in secondo luogo, per essere fonte eterna di ispirazione, grazie a tutte le persone che vivono ed hanno vissuto in Italia e che hanno formato la mia mente e il mio modo di pensare. Quando ero bambino, mia zia Rita era solita cantarmi una canzone che fa: “se fossi Leonardo (da Vinci) quante cose inventerei…!”. Non sono sicuro di aver inventato qualcosa che sia davvero degno del mio nome, ma penso ad ogni modo di essere molto grato a Leonardo da Vinci per avermi ispirato come ingegnere, inventore e artista, e soprattutto per aver disegnato l’Uomo Vitruviano, fonte di ispirazione per l’Istituto HumanTech. Infatti, questa popolare immagine ci deve ricordare che al centro della nostra ricerca c’è l’uomo, e che la tecnologia funge soltanto da supporto per il benessere umano. iv Abstract This thesis discusses tangible gesture interaction, a novel paradigm for interacting with computer that blends concepts from the more popular fields of tangible interaction and gesture interaction. Taking advantage of the human innate abilities to manipulate physical objects and to communicate through gestures, tangible gesture interaction is particularly interesting for interacting in smart environments, bringing the interaction with computer beyond the screen, back to the real world. Since tangible gesture interaction is a relatively new field of research, this thesis presents a conceptual framework that aims at supporting future work in this field. The Tangible Gesture Interaction Framework provides support on three levels. First, it helps reflecting from a theoretical point of view on the different types of tangible gestures that can be designed, physically, through a taxonomy based on three components (move, hold and touch) and additional attributes, and semantically, through a taxonomy of the semantic constructs that can be used to associate meaning to tangible gestures. Second, it helps conceiving new tangible gesture interactive systems and designing new interactions based on gestures with objects, through dedicated guidelines for tangible gesture definition and common practices for different application domains. Third, it helps building new tangible gesture interactive systems supporting the choice between four different technological approaches (embedded and embodied, wearable, environmental or hybrid) and providing general guidance for the different approaches. As an application of this framework, this thesis presents also seven tangible gesture interactive systems for three different application domains, i.e., interacting with the In-Vehicle Infotainment System (IVIS) of the car, the emotional and interpersonal communication, and the interaction in a smart home. For the first application domain, four different systems that use gestures on the steering wheel as interaction means with the IVIS have been designed, developed and evaluated. For the second application domain, an anthropomorphic lamp able to recognize gestures that humans typically perform for interpersonal communication has been conceived and developed. A second system, based on smart t-shirts, recognizes when two people hug and reward the gesture with an exchange of digital information. Finally, a smart watch for recognizing gestures performed with objects held in the hand in the context of the smart home has been investigated. The analysis of existing systems found in literature and of the system developed during this thesis shows that the framework has a good descriptive and evaluative power. The applications developed during this thesis show that the proposed framework has also a good generative power. v Riassunto Questa tesi discute l’interazione gestuale tangibile, un nuovo paradigma per interagire con il computer che unisce i principi dei più comuni campi di studio dell’interazione tangibile e dell’interazione gestuale. Sfruttando le abilità innate dell’uomo di manipolare oggetti fisici e di comunicare con i gesti, l’interazione gestuale tangibile si rivela particolarmente interessante per interagire negli ambienti intelligenti, riportando l’attenzione sul nostro mondo reale, al di là dello schermo dei computer o degli smartphone.
Recommended publications
  • Nabaztag Lives: the Rebirth of a Bunny
    Nabaztag Lives: The Rebirth of a Bunny An exploration of the Nabaztag as a social robot in a domestic environment Tanja Kampman, s1724185 Supervisor: dr. ir. Edwin Dertien Critical observer: dr. Angelika Mader 6th of July, 2018 Creative Technology, University of Twente Abstract The Nabaztag is a robot rabbit that this research has given a new purpose. The purpose is to help university students with generalized anxiety disorder symptoms or depressive symptoms, which are common in that group and often come together. The focus is on these students who are in therapy, specifically cognitive behavioural therapy. Current solutions for problems this target audience faces are found and the problems are analysed. The outcome of the ideation is a social robot companion that supports them both in their treatment and their studies by e.g. helping with sticking to a planning. This solution is then evaluated by peers from different fields according to a scenario of a student who struggles. Then, a prototype is created where the interaction is tested on whether the student could form a bond with the robot enough and on whether there are major problems in general. The result of these evaluations is that people believe there is potential for the concept if it was worked out further, but that there are many flaws currently in the system that would need to be fixed. 1 Acknowledgements I would like to give special thanks to my supervisor dr. ir. Edwin Dertien and my critical observer dr. Angelika H. Mader for guiding me on this journey. Also, special thanks to Richard Bults for organising the bachelor assignments.
    [Show full text]
  • Designing the Internet of Things
    Designing the Internet of Things Adrian McEwen, Hakim Cassimally This edition first published 2014 © 2014 John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. Registered office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com. The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the under- standing that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding Expressions of Internet of Things
    Understanding Expressions of Internet of Things Kuo Chun, Tseng*, Rung Huei, Liang ** * Department of Industrial and Commercial Design, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, [email protected] ** Department of Industrial and Commercial Design, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, [email protected] Abstract: A recent surge of research on Internet of Things (IoT) has given people new opportunities and challenges. Unfortunately, little research has been done on conceptual framework, which is a crucial aspect to envision IoT design. We found that designers usually felt helpless when designing smart objects in contrast to traditional ones and needed more resources for potential expressions of interactive embodiment with this new technology. Moreover, it appears to be unrealistic to expect the designer to follow the programming thinking and theory of MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) field. Therefore, instead of focusing on exploring the technology, this paper proposes an analytical framing and investigates interactive expressions of embodiment on smart objects that help designers understand and handle the technology as design material to design smart objects during the coming era of IoT. To achieve this goal, first we conceptualize an IoT artifact as an object that has four capabilities and provide a clear framework for understanding a thing and multiple things over time and space in ecology of IoT things powered by a cloud-based mechanism. Second, we show the analytical results of three categories: smart things and design agenda over cloud in respect of time and space. Third, drawing on the taxonomy of embodiment in tangible interfaces by Fishkin K.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Thank You Very Much for Inviting Me, Kimiko. It's Always a Pleasure To
    Thank you very much for inviting me, Kimiko. It’s always a pleasure to speak at Berkeley and to speak to this class. Today I want to talk about how ubiquitous computing technology creates a fuzzy boundary between products and services and to look a handful of case studies that show a range of approaches for merging products and services.! 1! But first, let me tell you a little about who I am. I’m a user experience researcher and designer. I spend much of my time thinking about how technologies and people affect each other from social, economic, historical and technological perspectives, and how the technological side of that relationship can be made better, or at least more interesting, for the human side of it. ! 2! I spent a little more than 10 years doing design and research for the web. I worked with many dotcoms, some famous, some infamous. 3! I sat out the first dotcom crash writing a book based on the work I had been doing. It’s a cookbook of user research methods that some of you may have used in a class here at the iSchool. 4! In 2001 I co-founded a design and consulting company called Adaptive Path. Things went very well, Adaptive Path is doing very well, but I was interested in other ways that technology was changing society. 5! So I founded a company with Tod E. Kurt called ThingM to pursue these ideas commercially three years ago. We're a ubiquitous computing consumer electronics company, which sounds fancy, but we’re pretty small.
    [Show full text]
  • List of Projects Using Raspberry Pi with Advance View: 1
    List of Projects using Raspberry Pi with advance view: 1. Home/Hotel Monitoring System with Automated controls A cloud connected prototype to monitor and control any hotel or can be home, The system is connected to an android application. Story Everyday we see a changing trend in technology and no matter wh has changed the way we live today and…... Listed under: Metering - Instrument Projects, Sensor - Transducer - Detector Projects 2. JQR Quadruped Autonomous Robot With a lot of inspiration from Boston Dynamics projects, I'm trying to make something great w million dollars. Story JQR Quadruped Robot is a DIY project with the main objective to build an autonomous, legged robot that wi people in many activities. The project…... Listed under: Robotics - Automation Projects 3. Raspberry Pi Web-Controlled Robot with Video Simple Raspberry Pi web-controlled robot with video live streaming. Story gatoBo gato is the spanish translation for cat. A web controlled Raspberry Pi Zero W Robot with live video streaming. This is something I b order to bother my cats. About Raspberry Pi Wikipedia: The Raspberry Pi is a…... Listed under: Robotics - Automation Projects 4. Alexa Messenger for Whatsapp Text anyone at anytime without even holding your phone or type a single letter with Alexa Messen Story Alexa Messenger for Whatsapp Did you ever want to text your friend but you are always busy or just not comfortable wit phone small screen…... Listed under: Other Projects 5. Archimedes: The AI Robot Owl A wearable robotic owl familiar. Archimedes judges your emotions, via Google AIY. Story As feature in Make: Magazine! This is a robotic owl that looks around for cool people, and can tell whether you're happy or upset.
    [Show full text]
  • Internet of Things Workshop with Arduino
    A CC licensed workshop by @tamberg, first held 07.07.2012 at SGMK MechArtLab Zürich, Switzerland, in collaboraon with Zürich IoT Meetup, Perey Research & ConsulDng, Thomas Brühlmann and SGMK. Internet of Things Workshop with Arduino @tamberg, 11.09.2014 This work by h=p://tamberg.org/ is licensed under a Creave Commons A=ribuDon-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Internet Computers, connected through Internet protocols Display or manipulate documents h=p://blog.com/2011-09-15/todays-post.html Internet of Things (IoT) Computers, sensors and actuators connected through Internet protocols Measure or manipulate physical proper:es h=p://e-home.com/tamberg/kitchen/light Internet-connected devices John Romkey’s Toaster (1990, Ethernet) BERG’s Li=le Printer (2011, ?) Ambient Orb (2002, via pager network) Supermechanical’s Twine (2012, Wifi) iPod (2001), iTunes Store (2003, via USB/PC) Olly & Polly (2012, via USB/PC) Nike+ iPod (2006), Bracelet (2008 via USB/PC) Koubachi Sensor (2012, Wifi) Rafi Haladjian’s Nabaztag (2006, Wifi) DescripDve Camera (2012, Ethernet) Rob Faludi’s Botanicalls (2006, Ethernet) Schulze&Webb Availabot (2006, via USB/PC) iPhone (2007, GSM) Amazon Kindle (2007, 3G) Wafaa Bilal’s Shoot an Iraqi (2007, ?) Withings BodyScale (2008, Wifi) Vitality GlowCap (2008, Wifi; 2011, 3G) BakerTweet (2009, 3G) Adrian McEwen’s Bubblino (2009, Ethernet) David Bowen’s Telepresent Water (2011, ?) Nest Thermostat (2011, Wifi) IoT reference model IoT hardware Any Internet-connected computer with an interface to the real world (sensors, actuators) Small => can be embedded into things Small computer = microcontroller (or board), e.g. Arduino, Netduino Plus, BeagleBone, … Note: connecDng your board to the Internet via a desktop PC and USB is also fine, just a bit overkill IoT hardware h=p://arduino.cc/ h=p://beagleboard.org/ h=p://netduino.com/ bone netduinoplus Note: Thanks to TCP/IP & HTTP, any client can talk to any service, no maer which hardware you choose IoT infrastructure services Thingspeak and Xively to store and use sensor measurements e.g.
    [Show full text]
  • Coupling Interaction Resources in Ambient Spaces: There Is More Than Meets the Eye!
    Coupling Interaction Resources in Ambient Spaces: There is More than Meets the Eye! Nicolas Barralon, Joëlle Coutaz Université Joseph Fourier 385 rue de la Bibliothèque, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex France {nicolas.barralon,joelle.coutaz}@imag.fr Abstract. Coupling is the action of binding two entities so that they can operate together to provide new functions. In this article, we propose a formal definition for coupling and present two complementary conceptual tools to reason about coupling interaction resources. The first tool is a graph theoretic and algebraic notation that can be used to identify the consequents of causal couplings so that the side-effects of the creation of a coupling can be analyzed in a formal and systematic way. The second tool formulates the problem of coupling using an 8 state automaton that models the life cycle of a coupling and provides designers with a structure to verify that usability properties have been satisfied for each state. We conclude with the concept of meta-UI, an overarching interactive system that shows that coupling is only one aspect of a larger problem space. Keywords: Ubiquitous computing, ambient intelligence, ambient interactive spaces, devices assembly, devices coupling, meta-UI. 1 Introduction Man is a natural builder. Babies love assembling cubes and objects into complex constructs. TV sets are augmented with high-fidelity loud speakers and wall-size screens to enhance the feeling of “being there”. Computer displays are increasingly augmented with additional external screens and exotic input devices such as iStuffs [1], etc. But as of today, human constructs are elaborated from (and for) two different worlds separated with clear boundaries: the computer world (with millions of PC’s interconnected over the planet) and the physical world (places, artifacts of all sorts, including cars fitted with hundreds of processors, but still insulated from the computer world).
    [Show full text]
  • Sourcebinder: Community-Based Visual and Physical Prototyping
    Bettina Conradi, Balázs Serényi, Miriam Kranz, Heinrich Hussmann (2010): SourceBinder: Community-based Visual and Physical Prototyping. In Steffen Budweg, Sebastian Draxler, Steffen Lohmann, Asarnusch Rashid, Gunnar Stevens (Eds.), International Reports on Socio-Informatics (IRSI), Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Open Design Spaces (ODS 2010) (Vol. 7, Iss. 2, pp. 23-35) SourceBinder: Community-based Visual and Physical Prototyping Bettina Conradi°, Balázs Serényi*, Miriam Kranz°, Heinrich Hussmann° University of Munich°, Visual MINDS* {bettina.conradi, hussmann}@ifi.lmu.de, [email protected], [email protected] Abstract. Physical interfaces broaden the entrance into the virtual world through sensors and actuators in our surrounding. Prototyping these interfaces demands expertise in hardware and software development – skills that are rarely found in end users, hobbyists or designers. If those users want to build a rapid prototype for a quick exploration of an idea, they are often troubled with learning the necessary programming and hardware engineering skills. The entry barriers for these target users can be lowered by providing suitable hardware and software toolkits. SourceBinder is a web-based visual programming tool that enables users to create projects and share them in a community. Users can test and adapt existing projects and even become developers by creating new nodes that can be used by the community. We want to present our extensions of SourceBinder which enables hardware to be connected to the visual programming environment, and show some example projects that can be realized in such a setting. Problem statement & motivation In biological systems, there is a tendency for specialised organisms to win out over generalised ones.
    [Show full text]
  • The Internet of Things
    Paper Prepared for the 1st Berlin Symposium on Internet and Society October 25-27, 2011 The Internet of Things Rob van Kranenburg [email protected] Erin Anzelmo [email protected] Alessandro Bassi [email protected] Dan Caprio [email protected] Sean Dodson [email protected] Matt Ratto [email protected] 1 Abstract This paper traces the challenges and nature of the impact posed by the developments termed the ’Internet of Things (IoT)’. The Internet of Things is comprised of a number of technological protocols that aim to connect things to other things, to databases and to in- dividuals. The speed with which the paradigm of connecting communicating objects has taken over the full range of connectivity protocol (IPv6), hardware (from cheap sensors to smart phones, iPads, tablets that are full blown computers), software (either proprietary in the cloud or collaborative open source), applications (ranging from location based services that link up to social networks to your car linked up to a particular brand network) and ser- vices (from car sharing with RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) cards (Buzzcar), to blinds texting you or your service layer that they are out of battery power (Designer) is determined by the collaborative power of the internet. In this paper, we outline the Internet of Things’ recent history, technological challenges and policy ecology. We end by sketching a possible framework for grasping its impact in four domains: (1) the value chain where all objects can be tracked, logged and traced, (2) the service layer that can be built upon this, (3) the smart city layer and (4) its ultimate limit and scope of the Sensing Planet notion that aims to capture natural processes by globally dis- tributed sensor grids to have counterparts in the cloud.
    [Show full text]
  • An Autopsy in the Iot: Nabaztag, the Hare
    @SHA2017 Scoutinglandgoed in Zeewolde The Netherlands August 4th to 8th 2017 An autopsy in the IoT: Nabaztag, the Hare. Marco A. CALAMARI – [email protected] Progetto Winston Smith Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights Copyleft 2017, Marco A. Calamari This material is released under licence Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial- ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Some images of this presentation are citation or “fair use” of copyrighted works, property of their respective owners. All trademarks are property of their owners. Your guest https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcocalamari/ ● Marco Calamari, born 1955, nuclear engineer, works as IT consultant, computer forenser and freelance writer. ● Some acronyms: IISFA, AIP, Opsi, HERMES, PWS. ● Passionate about privacy and cryptography, gave small contribution to several FOSS projects: Freenet, Mixmaster, Mixminion, Tor and Globaleaks. ● As Digital Rights activist, is amongst the founders of PWS - Winston Smith Project, and the Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights. ● As freelance writer, since 2003 he is columnist of Punto Informatico, with the weekly column Cassandra Crossing,this year crossed the 400th issue (www.cassandracrossing.org) What this talk aim to cover IoT is too young and too fast to possess an history. Only a bunch of separated facts exists; because this, a definitions of IoT and a definition of what make a thing a ToIoT (Thing of Internet of Things) are not agreed, or do not exist at all, As already told in other talks, there is one founding characteristic of ToIoT; to be examples of ªUbiquitous Computingº and being objects that hide their internal complexity.
    [Show full text]
  • Internet of Things: Smart Things
    International Journal of Future Computer and Communication, Vol. 4, No. 4, August 2015 Internet of Things: Smart Things Somayya Madakam B. Things Abstract—Research study on the Internet of Things and Smart Things has been going on for more than a decade and Thing can be defined as an entity, an idea, a quality reaches back to Mark Weiser’s original dream of ubiquitous perceived, or thought to have its own existence in the world. computing. Bruce Sterling recently popularized the idea of Things are also often interchanged with the word “Objects”. Smart Objects and the IoT. Smart Things is another paradigm When we are talking about things, they could be both Living shift in IT world. Smart Things are the things that are having Things and Non-Living Things. Things, in this context, can be embedding smartness or intelligence, identification, automation, monitoring and controlling calibre. Smart Things are assisting people, animals, plants, birds, servers, applications, shampoo human life a lot, nowadays without their applications life is bottles, cars, steering wheels, coffee machines, electronic becoming cumbersome. This paper exhibits systematically on devices, park benches or just about any other random item Internet, Things, and then explores on Internet of Things and that comes to our mind, even which could be vicinity dust also. finally Smart Things from researchers’, and corporate’s Everyday objects include not only electronic devices we perspective. Moreover, this article focuses on the state of Smart Things and its applications. This in turn would help the new encounter but also use daily, and technologically advanced researchers, who want to do research in this IoT domain.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Networking Sites As Platforms to Persuade Behaviour Change in Domestic Energy Consumption
    Social Networking Sites as Platforms to Persuade Behaviour Change in Domestic Energy Consumption Derek Foster An MSc project submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MSc in Human-Centred Interactive Technologies Department Of Computer Science University of York September 2009 Word Count: 41907 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author wishes to express their sincere appreciation to the project participants and their families for their invaluable assistance in the research and development of this project’s Facebook applications. Particular thanks also go to Crispin Proctor for giving permission and assistance in accessing energy data online from the myenergyusage.org web service. Thanks also goes to the staff of the Lincoln Social Computing Research centre for offering their valuable opinions on various aspect of the project’s work. 1 ABSTRACT Social Networking Sites as Platforms to Persuade Behaviour Change in Domestic Energy Consumption This MSc project addresses the following research question – “Can online social networks such as Facebook facilitate the motivation and behaviour change to reduce energy consumption in the home?” An investigation into the role of social interaction in social networks provides evidence to support the research question. The project undertook an extensive literature review and identified a gap in current knowledge regarding energy monitoring systems that are socially enabled. A participatory design workshop was then held to generate initial concept ideas and prototype interfaces. A final system using the Facebook application platform was designed and implemented by the author called Wattsup. An experimental design was then developed to evaluate the system which involved recruiting eight households for an eighteen day trial.
    [Show full text]