Ambient Intelligence: Science or Fad?
Joëlle Coutaz, James L. Crowley · 2012
Ambient intelligence concerns the use of emerging technologies for computing, sensing, displaying, communicating and interacting to provide services in ordinary human environments. This chapter first describes the evolution of informatics in ambient intelligence by focusing on the availability of computing power as a critical resource, the individual as the focus of attention, and the physical and social worlds in relation to the digital world. The scientific, technical and ethical challenges posed by ambient intelligence have been examined by a number of reports, specialized journals, conference sessions, and workshops. Three key challenges facing the field cover all of these domains: scalability, heterogeneity and dynamic adaptation. These three challenges arise from the fact that ambient intelligence pushes computing to its limits.