As we may think-revisited [the future of the Internet]

With the approach of the 21st Century, computer and software technologies have changed the very fabric of our society. Beyond the sheer advances in processor speed, the most dramatic, far-reaching changes have occurred in the way we transfer information. Through the medium of the Internet, information can now be transmitted instantaneously from one end of the planet to the other. The future of information technology is bright, to be sure, but not without its challenges. For the Internet to enable us to achieve all our goals, it must gain a real-time context of who we are, our state and what we are doing. To this end, we must decouple context from the GUI and move it into a system built to hold it: a context engine. This system will let each of us organize our information according to the way we think, by association     

Adaptive manuals as assistive technology to support and train people with acquired brain injury in their daily life activities

Assistive technologies and ubiquitous computing can be related since both try to help people in their lives. This common objective motivated us to develop and evaluate a system that puts ubiquitous computing technologies into the rehabilitation process of people with acquired brain injury. Thus, in this paper, we present and evaluate a system that shows adaptive manuals for daily-life activities for people with acquired brain injury. This first evaluation allowed us to validate our approach and also to extract valuable information about these systems as well as environmental factors that may affect the patients.     

Anywhere,anytime (+anyone) access to the next-generation WWW

With inereasing power, miniaturization, and thin-client/NetPC structures, people will soon be able to access the full network environment wherever they are. Information access points/appliances will be built into the walls, incorporated into our working environments, carried and even worn by us, and used as an integral part of most of our daily activities.At the same time, as the Internet and information technologies are being woven into the fabric of education, business, and daily life, greater attention is being focused on whether the ordinary person, including those with disabilities, will be able to access and use these systems.It is interesting that these two seemingly different objectives have similar solutions. If we design systems which are truly ubiquitous and nomadic; that we can use whether we are walking down the hall, driving the car, sitting at our workstation, or sitting in a meeting; that we can use when we're under stress or distracted; and that make it easy for us to locate and use new services — we will have created systems which are accessible to almost anyone with a physical or sensory disability. We will also have gone a long way to creating systems that are usable by a large percentage of the population who currently find systems aversive or difficult to learn. In addition, strategies and ideas developed for people with disabilities can provide valuable techniques and insights into creating devices for all nomadic computer users.     

数码艺术表现样态解析与探索

数码技术应用于艺术设计领域给我们带来给我们带来了多多的了不起的便利,比如:表现的便利、修正的便利、传播的便利、载体的便利、虚拟的便利等等,但是我们发现其表现样态似曾相识,并非做到了独立于艺术之林。如此下去,数码技术在艺术设计领域很难诞生独特的文化样态,如果这样的话,那就太对不起这项伟大的技术了,作为艺术设计同人应感到羞愧。羞愧是件好事,他唤起我们的探索。笔者认为我们应该调动人类的社会智慧,用科学发展观理念解析与探索数码技术与艺术的表现样态。     

Ubiquitous RFID: Where are we?

After over a half century of development, radio-frequency identification (RFID) is beginning to move into mainstream applications for automatic identification. RFID is widely seen today as one of the key enabling technologies of the “Internet of Things”. However, many challenges still need to be addressed before we can fully benefit from this nascent and ubiquitous technology. In this paper, we present the state of the art of RFID technology and discuss the challenges and open issues in developing next generation RFID applications.     

Guest editorial: Advances in RFID technology

After over a half century of development, radio-frequency identification (RFID) is beginning to move into mainstream applications for automatic identification. RFID is widely seen today as one of the key enabling technologies of the “Internet of Things”. However, many challenges still need to be addressed before we can fully benefit from this nascent and ubiquitous technology. In this paper, we present the state of the art of RFID technology and discuss the challenges and open issues in developing next generation RFID applications.     

Immersive Integration of Physical and Virtual Environments

We envision future work and play environments in which the user's computing interface is more closely integrated with the physical surroundings than today's conventional computer display screens and keyboards.We are working toward realizable versions of such environments, in which multiple video projectors and digital cameras enable every visible surface to be both measured in 3D and used for display. If the 3D surface positions were transmitted to a distant location, they may also enable distant collaborations to become more like working in adjacent offices connected by large windows. With collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, Advanced Network and Services, and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, we at Chapel Hill have been working to bring these ideas to reality. In one system, depth maps are calculated from streams of video images and the resulting 3D surface points are displayed to the user in head‐tracked stereo. Among the applications we are pursuing for this tele‐presence technology, is advanced training for trauma surgeons by immersive replay of recorded procedures. Other applications display onto physical objects, to allow more natural interaction with them ``painting'' a dollhouse, for example. More generally, we hope to demonstrate that the principal interface of a future computing environment need not be limited to a screen the size of one or two sheets of paper. Just as a useful physical environment is all around us, so too can the increasingly ubiquitous computing environment be all around us ‐integrated seamlessly with our physical surroundings.     

Smart devices and spaces for pervasive computing

Applications and services for pervasive computing have been dramatically grown and have contributed extensively to our daily experiences in recent years. Smart systems, devices, and spaces are proactive for ubiquitous and pervasive computing. Smart information technology (IT) is also an outcome of the state of the art and novel mobile and ubiquitous computing technologies that include highly capable handheld device, pervasive and personal device, etc. This special issue will be a trigger for further related research and technology improvements in pervasive and ubiquitous computing using smart devices and services. This special issue called for original papers describing the latest developments, trends, and solutions of smart devices and spaces for pervasive computing including real-time operating systems (OS), tiny OS and middleware supports, mobile system performance, trustworthy Internet and communications, agents and mobile and pervasive services, among others. In particular, this special issue focuses on a remote control and media-sharing system, flash storage-based smart system, heterogeneous mobile OS, and prediction and auto-execution system for pervasive computing.     

Methods and guidelines for the design and development of domestic ubiquitous computing applications

Bringing ubiquitous computing applications to home environments is a great challenge. In our research we investigate how applications can be conceived, designed and implemented in such a way that they fit into people’s lives. We describe our experiments on how methods of user centred design and participatory design can be appropriated to elicit users’ requirements and design ideas for ubiquitous computing applications for the home. In particular we report on a study on information presentation using display appliances. In a participatory design process enhanced with technology probes, we individually discussed potential solutions for specific homes with 14 people. Each of the resulting solutions is tailored to suit a single person. For each of these individual solutions we specified prototypes that would accommodate the user’s needs but are generic in its applicability at the same time. Based on this we derived a first set of guidelines for the design of display appliances in the home environment.     

See in 3D: state of the art of 3D display technologies

With advances in lasers, optics, and electronics, many new 3D display technologies have been proposed with prototypes in research labs or have entered the marketplace. Although some of these technologies (such as Stereoscopy) are familiar to people, other technologies, such as holography, remain far-fetched to most. This survey introduces the principles of current popular 3D display technologies, which are generally categorized into four categories: 3D movies, on-stage holograms, holographic projections and volumetric 3D displays. Furthermore, the limitations of each of the aforementioned technologies are deeply analyzed, and comparisons of these technologies are provided. Moreover, we note appropriate application situations for the various technologies. Because computer-generated hologram (CGH) technologies are considered to be the next generation of 3D display technology and have become a dominant direction in 3D display technology development, we address the challenges that CGH is currently facing and provide an insightful analysis of solutions proposed in recent years. Finally, we study the current 3D display applications associated with the four categorized technology principles.     

Visual Supercomputing: Technologies, Applications and Challenges

If we were to have a Grid infrastructure for visualization, what technologies would be needed to build such an infrastructure, what kind of applications would benefit from it, and what challenges are we facing in order to accomplish this goal? In this survey paper, we make use of the term ‘visual supercomputing’ to encapsulate a subject domain concerning the infrastructural technology for visualization. We consider a broad range of scientific and technological advances in computer graphics and visualization, which are relevant to visual supercomputing. We identify the state‐of‐the‐art technologies that have prepared us for building such an infrastructure. We examine a collection of applications that would benefit enormously from such an infrastructure, and discuss their technical requirements. We propose a set of challenges that may guide our strategic efforts in the coming years.     

Near‐Eye Display and Tracking Technologies for Virtual and Augmented Reality

Virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) are expected to revolutionise entertainment, healthcare, communication and the manufacturing industries among many others. Near‐eye displays are an enabling vessel for VR/AR applications, which have to tackle many challenges related to ergonomics, comfort, visual quality and natural interaction. These challenges are related to the core elements of these near‐eye display hardware and tracking technologies. In this state‐of‐the‐art report, we investigate the background theory of perception and vision as well as the latest advancements in display engineering and tracking technologies. We begin our discussion by describing the basics of light and image formation. Later, we recount principles of visual perception by relating to the human visual system. We provide two structured overviews on state‐of‐the‐art near‐eye display and tracking technologies involved in such near‐eye displays. We conclude by outlining unresolved research questions to inspire the next generation of researchers.     

Distributed coordinate descent for generalized linear models with regularization

Generalized linear model with L ₁ and L ₂ regularization is a widely used technique for solving classification, class probability estimation and regression problems. With the numbers of both features and examples growing rapidly in the fields like text mining and clickstream data analysis parallelization and the use of cluster architectures becomes important. We present a novel algorithm for fitting regularized generalized linear models in the distributed environment. The algorithm splits data between nodes by features, uses coordinate descent on each node and line search to merge results globally. Convergence proof is provided. A modifications of the algorithm addresses slow node problem. For an important particular case of logistic regression we empirically compare our program with several state-of-the art approaches that rely on different algorithmic and data spitting methods. Experiments demonstrate that our approach is scalable and superior when training on large and sparse datasets.     

增强现实技术综述

增强现实技术是将计算机渲染生成的虚拟场景与真实世界中的场景无缝融合起来的一种技术,它通过视频显示设备将虚实融合的场景呈现给用户,使人们与计算机之间的交互更加的自然,同时具有广泛的应用前景,因此成为近年来的一个研究热点。随着跟踪注册技术的进步、计算机性能的飞速发展、深度摄像机的普及,以及Light Field投影技术在增强现实中的应用,增强现实技术逐渐成为下一代人机交互的发展方向。该文章首先概述了增强现实的主要研究内容和发展情况,并详细介绍了增强现实的关键技术、开发工具,然后分类概述了增强现实应用案例。     

虚拟服装展示系统的比较研究

虚拟服装展示是借助立体全息技术、互联网或数字互动大屏幕来展示人体或数字角色“穿上”虚拟服装后的动态视觉效果。随着数字媒体艺术、交互技术和立体显示技术的发展,虚拟服装展示系统被广泛用于立体时装设计、服装表演、娱乐秀、商场试衣以及电视广告等领域。本文分析比较了近年来国内外虚拟服装展示领域的技术发展,并归纳总结出当前虚拟服装展示的5种人机交互模式。作者认为：随着全息技术、体感交互、立体视觉和增强现实等智能环境技术的发展,以“私人订制”为代表的个性化、时尚化和智能化的虚拟试衣体验将成为未来人们服装购买体验中不可或缺的重要环节之一。     

A survey on pervasive education

Researchers and developers worldwide have put their efforts into the design, development and use of information and communication technology to support teaching and learning. This research is driven by pedagogical as well as technological disciplines. The most challenging ideas are currently found in the application of mobile, ubiquitous, pervasive, contextualized and seamless technologies for education, which we shall refer to as pervasive education. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the existing work in this field and categorizes it with respect to educational settings. Using this approach, best practice solutions for certain educational settings and open questions for pervasive education are highlighted in order to inspire interested developers and educators. The work is assigned to different fields, identified by the main pervasive technologies used and the educational settings. Based on these assignments we identify areas within pervasive education that are currently disregarded or deemed challenging so that further research and development in these fields are stimulated in a trans-disciplinary approach.     

Pervasion of what? Techno–human ecologies and their ubiquitous spirits

Are the robots coming? Is the singularity near? Will we be dominated by technology? The usual response to ethical issues raised by pervasive and ubiquitous technologies assumes a philosophical anthropology centered on existential autonomy and agency, a dualistic ontology separating humans from technology and the natural from the artificial, and a post-monotheistic dualist and creational spirituality. This paper explores an alternative, less modern vision of the “technological” future based on different assumptions: a “deep relational” view of human being and self, an ecological view of human–technology relations, and “ubiquitous” spirituality. Moving beyond an ethics of fear and control, it is argued that technology is part of a lived and active whole that is at the same time human, technological, social, and spiritual. Influenced by ecological and Eastern thinking, it is concluded that an ethics of technology understood as a relational ethics of life asks us to adapt and grow within this multi-faced ecology, which is currently—but not necessarily—pervaded by hyper-individualist modernity and its ego-boosting technologies of the self. This growth is only possible by relating to, and learning from, other cultures and from their specific way of pervading and being pervaded.     

普适个性化多媒体服务技术综述*

随着数字技术和通信技术的快速发展,越来越多的普适设备能够接收和处理更多的多媒体信息。提供面向普适环境的多媒体个性化服务成为今天研究的热点。从普适个性化多媒体服务研究的不同侧面对其进行了综述,介绍了普适个性化多媒体服务的通用体系结构;对实现普适个性化多媒体服务的关键技术进行了详细的描述,包括描述模型、媒体代码转换与适应技术、用户喜好获取与更新和多媒体推荐技术;最后总结了现有的研究及其不足,指出进一步需要研究的方向。     

Reflection on research methodologies for ubicomp in developing contexts

As the user base for ubiquitous technology expands to developing regions, the likelihood of disparity between the lived experience of design team members (developers, designers, researchers, etc.) and end users has increased. Human-centered design (HCD) provides a toolkit of research methods aimed at helping bridge the distance between technology design teams and end users. However, we have found that traditional approaches to HCD research methods are difficult to deploy in developing regions. In this paper, we share our experiences of adapting HCD research methodologies to the Central Asia context and some lessons we have learned. While our lessons are many, reconsidering the unit of analysis from the individual to larger social units was an early discovery that provided a frame for later research activities that focused on ubicomp development. We argue that lessons and challenges derived from our experience will generalize to other research investigations in which researchers are trying to adapt common HCD data collection methods to create ubiquitous technologies for and/or with distant audiences in developing regions.