Abstract:
Most environments are passive—deaf,
dumb and blind, unaware of their inhabitants and unable to
assist them in a meaningful way. However, with the advent
of ubiquitous computing—ever smaller, cheaper and faster
computational devices embedded in a growing variety of
"smart" objects—it is becoming increasingly possible to
create active environments: physical spaces that can sense
and respond appropriately to the people and activities
taking place within them. Most of the early UbiComp
applications focus on how individuals interact with
their environments as they work on foreground
tasks. In contrast, this paper focuses on how groups
of people affect and are affected by background
aspects of their environments.
(PDF 265KB).
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