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The Mundane Computer: Non-Technical Design Challenges Facing Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient IntelligenceAllan ParsonsPage 1 ¦ Page 2 ¦ Page 3 ¦ Page 4 ¦ Page 5 ¦ Printer-friendly version 3. Ubiquitous computing, context-aware computing and ambient intelligenceIf ubiquitous computing is to be dispersed not just around the workplace but elsewhere, the challenge, as Moran and Dourish [19] indicate, is "to make computation useful in the myriad various situations that can be encountered in the real world - the ever-changing context of use." Furthermore, Albrecht Schmidt [20] makes it clear that, "…context is essential for building usable Ubiquitous Computing systems that respond in a way that is anticipated by the user. Context-awareness becomes a fundamental enabling technology for Ubiquitous Computing and is a key issue when creating computers that are invisible and disappear in terms of user perception. In these terms context-awareness goes beyond providing context information, it also requires understanding context and ultimately understanding situations." Moran and Dourish concur that for those working in ubiquitous/pervasive computing context-awareness is crucial to their efforts to disperse and enmesh computation into people's lives. Context is taken to refer to the physical and social situation in which computational devices are embedded, and one goal of context-aware computing is to acquire and utilise information about the context of a device to provide services that are appropriate to the particular people, place, time, events, and so on. Paul Dourish [21] identifies two strands of context-aware computing within human-computer interaction research. The first is primarily technical, focusing on physically-based interaction and augmented environments. The major exemplars in this strand are Weiser's ubiquitous computing and Ishii and Ullmer's Tangible Bits [22] . Although differing in emphasis, these two approaches share several features: they seek to exploit people’s natural familiarity with the everyday environment and their spatial and physical skills, so that computation can be used in concert with naturalistic activities; they use spatial and temporal configurations of elements and activities in the real world to disambiguate actions, to make computational responses a better fit for the actions in which users are engaged; and they look for opportunities to tie computational and physical activities together in such a way that a computer withdraws into the activity, so that users engage directly with the tasks at hand and the distinction between interface and action is minimised. The second strand of context-aware computing focuses on developing interactive systems around understandings of the generally operative social processes of everyday interaction. In this strand, the emphasis is on the relations between human-technology interactions and the social settings in which those interactions unfold. This strand moves towards what is called in Europe ambient intelligence. While ubiquitous computing is only a social paradigm by metaphorical overextension, remaining primarily a technical concept, the same cannot be said of the notion of ambient intelligence. The European Union, for example, uses the notion of ambient intelligence in an attempt to define a future social and economic space which is increasingly pervaded by computing intelligence as the 21st century unfolds. [23] Nigel Shadbolt [24] notes that in order to deliver environments rich in ambient intelligence, convergence of several computing areas is required: ubiquitous or pervasive computing, i.e. ad hoc networking capabilities that exploit highly portable or numerous, very-low-cost computing devices; intelligent systems research, for example learning algorithms and pattern matchers, speech recognition and language translators, and gesture classification and situation assessment; spatial context awareness, tracking and positioning objects of all types and representing objects’ interactions with their environments; and social interaction, involving appreciation of the social interactions of objects in environments. For Shadbolt, the overall challenges in developing ambient intelligence are to understand how people live their lives and to understand how they use the spaces in which they live, to create particular 'places'. Shadbolt’s outline of the computing convergence required for ambient intelligence indicates that ubiquitous or pervasive computing is only one part of the mix. Aarts [25] elaborates on the distinction between the two terms, "Ambient intelligence aims to take the integration provided by ubiquitous computing one step further by realising environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people." For Aarts, "Ambient intelligence is more than just a question of embedding technology into objects. It involves human culture in its broadest sense; universal desires; complex social relationships; diverse value systems; individual likes and dislikes; the sustainability of economic and natural ecosystems; and codes of ethics, conduct, and communication, both in civil society and business." As Shadbolt indicates, ambient intelligence, in the early 2000s, is far from being a facet of everyday life. It remains at the research stage. The leading developers have been Philips and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Organisations researching ambient intelligence include institutes such as Ireland’s National Microelectronics Centre, VTT Electronics and the Fraunhofer IZM. Ongoing projects addressing software, infrastructure and design challenges for ambient intelligence include the Aware Home at Georgia Institute of Technology, Aura at Carnegie Mellon University, Endeavour at University of California at Berkeley, Portolano at the University of Washington, Cooltown at Hewlett Packard, Jini at Sun, PIMA at IBM Research, and the Semantic Web at W3C. Research is also underway at Xerox PARC and in a number of companies funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA). Microsoft Research is also conducting research into ambient intelligence, particularly in larger-scale spaces such as office buildings and public places (corporate campuses and airports). Within the European Union (EU), two projects related to ambient intelligence are already underway. They are the Ambience Project, which was initiated as part of the Information Technology for European Advancement (ITEA) programme, itself part of the pan-European intergovernmental EUREKA initiative [26] . The Ambience Project is led by Philips. The other is the Disappearing Computer, a proactive initiative of the Future and Emerging Technologies activity of the Information Society Technologies research programme. A major step in developing the vision of ambient intelligence in Europe came from the Information Society Technologies Advisory Group (ISTAG). In 1999, ISTAG published a vision statement for the European Community Framework Programme 5 for Research and Technological Development (FP5). Following the work of ISTAG and other consultative procedures organised by the European Commission, ambient intelligence became the key concept in the European Community Framework Programme 6 for Research and Technological Development (FP6) for the period 2002-2006. The FP6 is the EU’s main instrument for the funding of research in Europe. The main focus of FP6 is the creation of a European Research Area (ERA). Ambient Intelligence in Everyday Life (AmI@Life) is one of two pilot science and technology roadmaps under development at the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in collaboration with the European Science and Technology Observatory network. (See http://fiste.jrc.es/download/AmIReportFinal.pdf.) The overall vision in Europe is that the Information Society Technologies thematic priority will contribute directly to realising European policies for the knowledge society as agreed at the Lisbon Council of 2000, the Stockholm Council of 2001, the Seville Council of 2002 and as reflected in the e-Europe Action Plan. The strategic goal for Europe in the 2000s is to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion. [27] The Lisbon strategy is seen as a means to enable the European Union to give a positive response to the new conditions defined by economic globalisation in the post-Cold War era, technological change and population ageing. Such a strategy would take advantage of that technological change, define a European way to a knowledge economy and restore the prospect of more and better jobs. According to Rodrigues [28], "The Lisbon strategy can be understood as a strategy for economic and social modernisation in the light of European values. This strategy encompasses various policies: information society, research, innovation, enterprise, financial market, education and training, employment, social protection and social inclusion". For the EU’s ISTAG, the concept of ambient intelligence, "provides a vision of the Information Society where the emphasis is on greater user-friendliness, more efficient services support, user-empowerment, and support for human interactions. People are surrounded by intelligent intuitive interfaces that are embedded in all kinds of objects and an environment that is capable of recognising and responding to the presence of different individuals in a seamless, unobtrusive and often invisible way." [29] The ISTAG argue that if ambient intelligence is to be successful as the future techno-economic trajectory of development, it will also have to be seen as a positive force for the societal and political development of Europe. Thus, for the ISTAG, ambient intelligence, requires more than computer science. It can only be fully developed by a holistic approach, encompassing technical, economic and societal research." [30] Overall, the social aspects of ambient intelligence raise major issues that require precautionary research, particularly in the areas of privacy, control and social cohesion, the ISTAG contend. Furthermore, encouragement may be needed to develop forms of ambient intelligence that are sensitive and adaptive to societal development and the diversity of European social, political and cultural life. In order to release the potential socio-political gains from, and the economic potential of ambient intelligence, significant and underpinning research of a focused nature will be required, including research into socio-technical design factors, support for human-to-human interaction and the analysis of societal and political development. The notion of ambient intelligence, then, articulates explicitly some of the dimensions missing from the notion of ubiquitous computing, if it is to operate as a social paradigm. It also suggests, given the plethora of initiatives, structures, committees and groups implicated in the context of the EU, just how complicated developing ambient intelligence as a societal vision would be. The third major challenge for the development of ubiquitous computing, now as part of ambient intelligence, is to understand how and why technologies are adopted and diffused throughout society and across countries, such that they might become commonplace. If ubiquitous computing can be said to imply a technologically deterministic and utilitarian view of technology development and its societal dissemination, then ambient intelligence might be said to imply an overly bureaucratic view of how technologies are developed and disseminated. In the technology-centred view, engineers create technologies that are so useful that they are widely adopted. The actual processes of dissemination are not defined precisely. In the bureaucratic view, governments, for example in the form of EU decisions interpreted by member state governments, and large corporations, such as Philips, conceive the direction of and goals for technology development, while implementation is secured through research contracts involving collaborations between corporations of various sizes and academic institutions in the Framework Programme. Technologies become widespread because, once developed, they are marketed to appeal to corporate and consumer need and desire, on the basis of a mixture of utility and symbolic value. Given the existing levels of public scepticism towards corporate advertising, marketing and globalisation and towards European integration (Euroscepticism), the limitations of the bureaucratic view of dissemination are readily apparent. Design and development of ambient intelligent environments, if they are to become commonplace but not insidious, may need to take into account a wide range of factors relating to technology, government, corporate enterprises, markets, the nature of demand and the nature of corporate, household, private and public consumption, as well as the nature of public and private goods. 4. Europe in the post-Cold War, post 11 September 2001 globalising eraSignificantly, the ISTAG scenarios document, Scenarios for ambient intelligence in 2010, was issued in February 2001. In July 2003, the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) issued a report with a different emphasis: Security and Privacy for the Citizen in the Post-September 11 Digital Age: a Prospective Overview [31]. In this report, the hypothesis is that the balance between an individual’s freedom, reflected in the protection of their privacy, and the needs of the state to maintain law and order through appropriate security policies, a balance that has been built up over time within the framework of Europe’s democratic societies, is shifting. The report argues that a combination of two factors is shifting that balance. Those factors are emerging information and communication technologies and their commercial and governmental applications; and governments' actions in response to rising organised crime and terrorism. Three areas of technology are particularly important in the context of this shifting balance between individual privacy and state (or national) security, the report contends. They are identity-related technologies, e.g. identity management systems, radio-frequency based identity devices and biometrics; location-based services, in which mobile communication devices, notably mobile phones, provide services to users based on where they are located; and ambient intelligence technologies. The vision of ambient intelligence, the document states, requires a new security paradigm and new privacy measures. As can be recognised, we are a long way from the small-scale ethnographic study of work practices and home-based tasks. The major contextualising horizon is no longer the workplace or the home, but has become the nation state and the dynamics of international relations. One may be performing a particular task in a specific location, but one may also be performing 'national security', and possibly some form of nationalism, for example through the performance of a 'patriotic' act. At the same time, it might be difficult to decide whether one is performing a 'patriotic' act or a racist act. As well as performing in the theatre of racial politics, one may also be performing on the stage of global politics. For example, one may be taking up a symbolic position, through one’s behaviour, in the globalisation/anti-globalisation debate. One's actions may seem to suggest that one supports a purported "neoliberal economic orthodoxy", even though that is far from one's conscious mind (attention) and is not the matter at hand. Alternatively, one may seem, for example from the manner of one's dress, to support a 'politics of resistance', or so it may be assumed by those with whom one shows solidarity or by those whose job it is to police the social order. [32] From this perspective, the everyday is globalised. Two of the major events in this globalising context are the end of the Cold War in 1989-1991, indicating the emergence of a single, very unevenly developed and immensely problematic human and economic space, and the events of 11 September 2001, itself refracting an aspect of that uneven development. Yet, experientially, the everyday remains localised or proximate, located and situated. Actions, although often enacted simultaneously, differ in their nature and consequence, unfolding according to different spatial, temporal, practical, symbolic and institutional horizons. The fourth major challenge for the design and development of ubiquitous computing, but moreso that of ambient intelligence, is to create an understanding of contextualisation, the processes whereby specific locations, situations, institutions and conjunctures, i.e. particular spatio-temporal contexts at different scales, and specific human 'selves' are created, sustained and inter-related. Crucial to such understanding is a sense of how such contexts re-mark one another ecosystemically through social practice. Furthermore, this abstract understanding of contextualisation will have to be related to the concrete, socio-historical realities of the world of the 21st century, and the socio-economic changes which it is undergoing, while addressing people's differing situated, motivated understandings of that reality and those changes (as mediated through their senses of self-hood). Footnotes19. Moran, T. P. and Dourish, P. (2001). Introduction to this special issue on context-aware computing, Human-Computer Interaction, 16/2, pp. 3-4. Available online at http://hci-journal.com/editorial/si-context-aware-intro.pdf. Accessed 31 March 2005. return 20. Schmidt, A. (2002). Ubiquitous computing – computing in context. Ph.D. thesis available online at http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/~albrecht/phd/Albrecht_Schmidt_PhD-Thesis_Ubiquitous-Computing_print1.pdf return 21. Dourish, P. (2001a). Seeking a foundation for context-aware computing, Human-Computer Interaction, 16/2,3-4, pp.229-241. return 22. Ishii, H. and Ullmer, B. (1997). Tangible Bits: Towards Seamless Interfaces between People, Bits and Atoms. Available online at http://tangible.media.mit.edu/content/papers/pdf/Tangible_Bits_CHI97.pdf return 23. ISTAG (2003). Ambient intelligence: from vision to reality. Available online at ftp://ftp.cordis.lu/pub/ist/docs/istag-ist2003_draft_consolidated_report.pdf. Accessed 31 March 2005. ITEA (2004). ITEA technology roadmap for software-intensive systems, 2nd edition. Available from http://www.itea-office.org. Accessed 10 December 2004. return 24. Shadbolt, N. (2003). Ambient Intelligence, Intelligent Systems, 18/4, pp.2-3. return 25. Aarts, E. (2004). Ambient Intelligence: a Multimedia Perspective, Multimedia, 11/1, pp.12-19. return 26. Yoshida, J. (2003, 31 October). Symposium to highlight 'ambient intelligence', EETimes. Available online at http://www.eet.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=18309582. Accessed 15 November 2004. return 27. Punie, Ambient intelligence in everyday life, op. cit. return 28. Rodrigues, M. J. (2003). European policies for a knowledge economy. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. return 29. Ducatel, K. et al. (2001). Scenarios for ambient intelligence in 2010: Final Report. Seville: Institute for Prospective Technological Studies. Available online at ftp://ftp.cordis.lu/pub/ist/docs/istagscenarios2010.pdf. Accessed 31 March 2005. return 30. ISTAG, Ambient Intelligence, op. cit. return 31. IPTS (2003). Security and Privacy for the Citizen in the Post-September 11 Digital Age: a Prospective Overview. Seville, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS). Available online at http://www.jrc.es/home/publications/publication.cfm?pub=1118. Accessed 10 December 2004. return 32. Maiguashca, B. (2003). Governance and resistance in world politics: Introduction, Review of International Studies, 29 (S1), pp.3-28. return | |