Intelligent Objects at Work and in Everyday Life
Michael Lawo, Otthein Herzog, Hagen Langer, Jan D. Gehrke · 2008
Intelligent objects are in the focus of research areas like Ambient Intelligence or Ubiquitous Computing and play a dominant role when observing the respective current research directions. However, there needs to be also an additional focus on how these intelligent objects can be of use: what are appropriate interfaces mediating between the world of objects and the worlds of people like work and everyday life? The classical desktop computing paradigm is obviously not appropriate for the communication between people and intelligent objects. It is the area of Wearable Computing which resolves this issue in that instead of working at the computer the user is supported in an ambient way in his primary tasks by computing systems. Those systems support the user in a secondary task and could even be integrated into the clothing. They consist of several autonomous components like sensors which may interact with intelligent objects, and general computing devices communicating in an autonomous way with intelligent objects in the current environment defining a specific context. In this paper an open wearable computing architecture is presented to clarify the properties of the wearable computing paradigm in this context, and multiagent systems are proposed to define the computational interface between autonomous intelligent objects and the environment which people can be also part of. Ambient Intelligence and Wearable Computing Based on the vision of Ambient Intelligence (AMI) the Information Technologies Program Advisory Group of the European Commission (ISTAG) compiled a user-centric vision of supportive environments in four different scenarios [Duc01]. This work has prepared the ground for several research initiatives funded by the European Commission and is one of the important pillars of the general paradigm shift how computers will serve the human in the future. The concept of AMI aims the following goals: to make computer support available at any time, any place and in any situation to enrich the environment with several smaller and connected computer supported entities, the so-called intelligent objects, to integrate the technology into the general ecology of the environment of intelligent objects, to let the computer disappear, so that the user can concentrate on other tasks, rather than the permanent and conscious use of a computer system. The focus on how these intelligent objects can be used is of special importance: what are appropriate interfaces mediating between the world of objects and the worlds of people like work and, e.g., gaming in everyday life? The classical desktop computing paradigm is obviously not appropriate for the communication between people and intelligent objects. It is the area of Wearable Computing which resolves this issue in that instead of working at the computer the user is supported in an ambient way in his primary tasks by computing systems. Those systems support the user in a secondary task and could even be integrated into the clothing. They consist of several autonomous components like sensors which may detect intelligent objects, and general computing devices communicating in an autonomous way with intelligent objects in the current environment defining a specific context. Therefore the paradigm of Wearable Computing shares ideas of the AMI vision and it is therefore sensible to look at both research areas in an integrated way. Rhodes defines Wearable Computing as follows [Rho97]: “Portable while operational: The most distinguishing feature of a wearable is that it can be used while walking or otherwise moving around. This distinguishes wearables from both desktop and laptop computers. Hands-free use: Military and industrial applications for wearables especially emphasize their hands-free aspect, and concentrate on speech input and heads-up display or voice output. Other wearables might also use chording-keyboards, dials, and joysticks to minimize the tying up of a user's hands,” e.g., in gaming. “Sensors: In addition to user-inputs, a wearable should have sensors for the physical environment” in order to communicate with intelligent objects. “Such sensors might include wireless communications, GPS, cameras, or microphones.