Ambient Intelligence is a vision of the future information society stemming from the convergence of ubiquitous computing, ubiquitous communication and intelligent user-friendly interfaces. It offers an opportunity to realise an old dream, i.e. the smart or intelligent home. Will it fulfil the promises or is it just an illusion - offering apparently easy living while actually increasing the complexity of life? This article touches upon this question by discussing the technologies, applications and social implications of ambient intelligence in the home environment. It explores how Ambient Intelligence may change our way of life. It concludes that there are great opportunities for Ambient Intelligence to support social developments and modern lifestyles. However, in order to gain wide acceptance a delicate balance is needed: the technology should enhance the quality of life but not be seeking domination. It should be reliable and controllable but nevertheless adaptive to human habits and changing contexts
PurposeThis paper seeks to discuss the outcomes of a road‐mapping research on social media project completed at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Social media refer to a combination of three elements: content, user communities, and Web 2.0 technologies.Design/methodology/approachThe paper utilizes socio‐technical road‐mapping to study the potential transformations of social media in the virtual and physical spheres.FindingsRoad‐maps were constructed in three thematic areas: society, companies, and local environment. The results were crystallized into five development lines. The first development line is transparency and its increasing role in society. The second development line is the rise of a ubiquitous participatory communication model. The third development is reflexive empowerment citizens. The fourth development line is the duality of personalization/fragmentation vs mass effects/integration. The fifth development line is the new relations of physical and virtual worlds.Originality/valueThe study of social media has been focusing mainly on its technological aspects from the current perspective. This paper forms a future‐oriented perspective to social media in a wider societal context.
We are living in a world of increasing interconnectedness through digitalisation and globalisation, exacerbating environmental conditions, severe economic challenges, uneven distribution of wealth, and geopolitical crises. The world is a complex system and the rapid change among its sub-systems builds up pressure for any efforts to anticipate change and shape the processes of transformation. Surprise is an intrinsic aspect of change, in particular when it takes place at an accelerating pace with high degrees of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity (VUCA) -or within the condition of post-normality as described by Ziauddin Sardar. Emerging technologies such as AI and renewable energy systems add to the complexity of societies, and thus to the world of VUCA and post-normality. In foresight horizon scanning has much focused on the probable or even predictable -surprise-free developments. More emphasis should be paid on systematic anticipation of wild cards and black swans, and on the analysis of weak signals. Foresight should also focus on discontinuities -broader phenomena and developments instead of single events. Energy is a complex issue. Without energy there is no life, neither biological nor economic. Taking into account the huge ecological and social costs of the present energy system, the need for a new emission-free, cost-effective, and democratised energy system is obvious. An energy transformation to reach 100% renewable energy is envisioned in four transformational neo-carbon energy scenarios. Energy is increasingly a societal and even cultural issue -above all a security issue. As regards energy security, various sudden events and surprises could play a major role. New energy systems themselves, with other new technologies, nudge the world into unknown, discontinuous directions. Therefore, we probe the resilience, anti-fragility and discontinuity of these transformational, societal energy scenarios. The results of a futures clinique where the scenarios were tested are presented. Implications of surprises for energy security, as the world increasingly seeks to move towards a renewable energy based society, are explored.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.