Summary. Visions of ambient intelligence and ubiquitous computing involve integrating tiny microelectronic processors and sensors into everyday objects in order to make them "smart." Smart things can explore their environment, communicate with other smart things, and interact with humans, therefore helping users to cope with their tasks in new, intuitive ways. Although many concepts have already been tested out as prototypes in field trials, the repercussions of such extensive integration of computer technology into our everyday lives are difficult to predict. This contribution is a first attempt to classify the social, economic, and ethical implications of this development.

Visions of Pervasive Computing and ambient intelligence involve integrating tiny microelectronic processors and sensors into everyday objects in order to make them "smart." Smart things can explore their environment, communicate with other smart things, and interact with humans, therefore helping users to cope with their tasks in new, intuitive ways. Although many concepts have already been tested out as prototypes in field trials, the repercussions of such extensive integration of computer technology into our everyday lives are difficult to predict. This article is a first attempt to classify the social, economic, and ethical implications of this development.

Abstract. With the emerging mass production of very small, cheap Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, it is becoming feasible to deploy such tags on a large scale. In this paper, we advocate distribution schemes where passive RFID tags are deployed in vast quantities and in a highly redundant fashion over large areas or object surfaces. We show that such an approach opens up a whole spectrum of possibilities for creating novel RFID-based services and applications, including a new means of cooperation between mobile physical entities. We also discuss a number of challenges related to this approach, such as the density and structure of tag distributions, and tag typing and clustering. Finally, we outline two prototypical applications (a smart autonomous vacuum cleaner and a collaborative map-making system) and indicate future directions of research.

No abstract

We provide evidence of the feasibility and effectiveness of a middleware architecture for mobile devices (MoDs), which employs dense distributions of small computerized entities for providing fault-tolerant location-aware services. We do so by describing exemplary implementations based on radio frequency identification as an enabling technology. Firstly, we present prototypical implementations of the hardware abstraction layer and of selected core middleware services. The latter enable a MoD to store and retrieve data and position information in physical places in a fault-tolerant manner, and to identify places based on a location abstraction which is robust against failure of individual tags. Secondly, we investigate the feasibility of some higher-level services and applications by developing and evaluating prototypical systems for tracing and tracking, self-positioning, and collaborative map-making. Keywords Ubiquitous computing Á Location awareness Á Super-distributed RFID tag infrastructures Á Radio frequency identification Á Positioning Á Map-making An earlier version of this article [1] was presented at the 19th international conference on Architecture of Computing Systems (ARCS '06) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Summary. Tracking location is challenging due to the numerous constraints of practical systems including, but not limited to, global cost, device volume and weight, scalability and accuracy; these constraints are typically more severe for systems that should be wearable and used indoors.We investigate the use of wearable solar cells to track changing light conditions (a concept that we named LuxTrace) as a source of user displacement and activity data. We evaluate constraints of this approach and present results from an experimental validation of displacement and activity estimation. The results indicate that a distance estimation accuracy of 21 cm (80% quantile) can be achieved.A simple method to combine LuxTrace with complementary absolute location estimation methods is also presented. We apply carpet-like distributed RFID tags to demonstrate online learning of new lighting environments.

Abstract. We provide evidence of the feasibility and effectiveness of a middleware architecture for mobile devices which employs dense distributions of small computerized entities for providing fault-tolerant location-aware services. We do so by describing exemplary implementations based on radio frequency identification (RFID) as an enabling technology. Firstly, we present prototypical implementations of the hardware abstraction layer and of selected core middleware services. The latter enable a mobile device to store and retrieve data and position information in physical places in a fault-tolerant manner, and to identify places based on a location abstraction which is robust against failure of individual tags. Secondly, we investigate the feasibility of some higher-level services and applications by developing and evaluating prototypical systems for tracing and tracking, self-positioning, and collaborative map-making.

No abstract