Slow Food, Slow Growth … Slow ICT: The Vision of Ambient Intelligence
Jean‐Claude Burgelman · Anthem Press eBooks · 2009
More or less a decade ago, I started cooperating on a project that was to turn into one of the biggest thrills of my professional life. At the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), we were tasked by the ISTAG to chart the future of Europe's information society. European policy makers needed an independent vision that went beyond the infrastructure one being propagated mainly by the United States. The result was a comprehensive concept called Ambient Intelligence (ISTAG 2001). We produced a European project for 2010 and beyond based on several visions of the future and what they implied for research and development in information and communication technologies. Our focal point was that within a not-too-distant future, our real environment would be filled to the hilt with intelligent hardware and software. It would allow us to envisage what we would be able to do as employee, citizen, student, human being – you name it. That is why Ambient Intelligence is more than ‘ubiquitous computing’, one of the futuristic visions that was then especially popular in the United States. Let me back up this vision with some excerpts: Ambient Intelligence (AmI) stems from the convergence of three key technologies: Ubiquitous Computing, Ubiquitous Communication, and Intelligent User-Friendly Interfaces. In the AmI vision, humans will be surrounded by intelligent interfaces supported by computing and networking technology which is everywhere, embedded in everyday objects such as furniture, clothes, vehicles, roads and smart materials, even particles of decorative substances like paint. […]