Research

[MyResearch] Location and tracking system

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I think the following paper should be considered as seminal in the field of estimating the position of a mobile device : P. Bahl and V. N. Padmanabhan, "Radar: An in-building rf-based user location and tracking system," In Proceedings of the IEEE Infocom 2000, Tel-Aviv, Israel, vol. 2, Mar. 2000, pp. 775--784. The authors provide the reader with a nice literature review of the existing location and tracking systems:

- Active Badge : a badge worn by a person emits a unique IR signal every 10 seconds. While this system provides accurate location information, it suffers from several drawbacks: (a) it scales poorly due to the limited range of IR, (b) it incurs significant installation and maintenance costs, and (c) it performs poorly in the presence of direct sunlight, which is likely to be a problem in rooms with windows. - cellular phones: involve measuring the signal attenuation, the angle of arrival (AOA), and/or the time difference of arrival (TDOA). While these systems have been found to be promising in outdoor environments, their effectiveness in indoor environments is limited by the multiple reflections suffered by the RF signal. - Systems based on the Global Positioning System, while very useful outdoors, are ineffective indoors because buildings block GPS transmissions.

They propose to use triangulation of the radio signal strength (expressed in unit of dBm) as a function of the user's location. Their methdology is the following :

Each base station (bs) records the signal strength (ss) measurement3 together with a synchronized timestamp t, i.e., it records tuples of the form (t, bs, ss). We collected signal strength information in each of the 4 directions at 70 distinct physical locations on our floor. For each combination of location and orientation (i.e., (x,y,d) tuple), we collected at least 20 signal strength samples. we merged all of the traces collected during the off-line phase into a single, unified table containing tuples of the form (x,y,d,ssi,snri), where I = {1, 2, 3} corresponding to the three base stations.

We consider a couple of approaches. The first is the empirical method where we use the location and SS data gathered during the off-line phase. We need a metric and a search methodology to compare multiple locations and pick the one that best matches the observed signal strength. We term our general technique nearest neighbor(s) in signal space (NNSS). The idea is to compute the distance (in signal space) between the observed set of SS measurements, (ss1,ss2,ss3), and the recorded SS, (ss’1,ss’2,ss’3), at a fixed set of locations, and then pick the location that minimizes the distance. In our analysis, we use the Euclidean distance measure, i.e., sqrt((ss1-ss’1)2+(ss2-ss’2)2+(ss3-ss’3)2). It is possible to use other distance metrics, for example, the sum of the absolute differences for each base station (the “Manhattan” distance) or a metric weighted by the signal strength level at each base station.

[Space] Smart Words about Locative Media

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Via drew hemment :

Locative media uses portable, networked, location aware computing devices for user-led mapping and artistic interventions in which geographical space becomes its canvas. The rhetoric of locative media gestures to a utopian near-future in which the digital domain and geographical space converge, and the course it plots towards this future demands not only that data be made geographically specific but also that the user - if not defined by their location - at least offers up their location as a condition of entering the game. In this respect, not to mention its choice of tools, locative media operates upon the same plane as military tracking, State and commercial surveillance, its concern for pinpointing and positioning shared with coercive forms of social control, forcing a consideration of how locative media might challenge, or be complicit with such forms of social control, and of the point at which the locative utopia rubs up against the dystopian fantasy of total control.

[MyResearch] Ideas around my phD (draft difficult to read)

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I come up with ideas that could be implemented and could be close to my research interests (studying socio-cognitive processes occuring during collaboration). In a mobile situations (indoor but in real life) I was wondering if we could use two types of problem solving situations in which space is meaningful: - cluedo-like mistery: solving a mistery by investigating rooms. - dynamic situation: there are two options + control room and people on the field (two layers) : a simple application would be to rescue someone and you need a group as well as tools (like a scale...) to get there; people needs to get the tools, bring at some point, coordinates... another idea would be a counterstrike situation (resucing hostages, findings bombs and desactivating landmines) + just people on the field (one layer)

Advantages : - concrete and joint activity - space is involved - activity well described in the literature (firemen), research concering team mental model about this already exists, but they do not focus on team spatial model. - the location-based device is seen as a tool embedded in a scenario (four ipaqs that could indicate the positions of others in an indoor environment like EPFL during 2 hours is sufficien)

Drawbacks : - model of an activity - not a "longitudinale" study - the activity and the environment is not useful for students/Teamframe (TF = the environment devloped by Patrick, Fabien, Yvan and Maniratan)

Any possible connection with TF ? 100 students have an iPAQ ! doing something with it ? A "longitudinale" study ? that would be great BUT do they care about other's positions ? (that's why I want to investigate about how space/location/mobility is perceived and used by students - still in the process of contacting people 3 targets : students/firemen/field study people) Another problem: least collaborative effort: since it's so easy to phone a friend they don't use TF to locate their partners.

OF COURSE, there is still this idea of Virtual Landmarks (location-linked information): people receive an information when they pass by a specific place. The message is posted by someone like a friend. The exchange of message is indeed bound to a specific community : one person receive messages only from their community. It is possible to imagine a rating of the person in order to have a reputation-based system: receiving only messages from the person in whom you're the most confident...

Making internal process external

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Naomi Miyake, in her paper "Making Internal Process External for Constructive Collaboration" explains in which way how human cognitive processes not only rely on internal knowledge but also on a physical externalization of the interaction of those processes with the nvironments, made up of people and artifacts. The first and simplest example is the affordance of an object : the shape 'affords' some action. Another easy-to-get understand is the journal/log that could be seen as a way to store, sort and share information. I also like this example :

The mere location of a tool recently used can be interpreted for instance as a sign of the progress of the work

This paper would also be interesting : Miyake, N. (1986) Constructive interaction and the iterative process of understanding. Cognitive Science, 10, 151-177.

INRETS: research lab in France about transport

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INRETS is a french public structure involved into research about transport, mobility from various point of view. One part of the structure is in Lyon and focuses on the cognitive aspects of mobility/transport : mental imagery, mental model, space orientation, decision-making, shared attention, cognitive load, cognitive models... I ought to contact them in order to ask if somebody there works on distributed cognition or spatial problem solving.

Metadata : what for ?

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I was wondering about how using metadata. It is not just matter of having a good reference system to found your stuff on google. You can use metada to: locate stuff (in the virtual world as well in real space), discover, select, manipulate/re-use, document, contextualise, manage, store, sort... According to the Nordic Metadata Project, metadata are :

data which describes a resource(s) or data which is associated with an object that describes that object. Basically, metadata is a description of objects, documents or services which may contain data about their form and content. The proposed set of 15 elements has emerged from an international effort of concensus building manifested through a series of workshops. Bibliographic records and catalog records used in libraries could be seen as one form of metadata.

Dublin Core is a nice metadata model made up of 15 elements which are embedded into HTML 2.0 or HTML 4.0: Title, Subject, Description, Creator, Publisher, Contributor, Date, Type, Format, Identifier, Source, Language, Relation, Coverage, Rights.

Example : <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Test Page </TITLE> <META NAME="DC.Title” CONTENT="Test page at TECFA"> <META NAME="DC.Date" CONTENT="(SCHEME=ISO8601) 2004-01-13"> <META NAME="DC.Subject" CONTENT="test page to show how to use the Dublin Core metadata model"> <META NAME="DC.Description" CONTENT="Dublin Core is a nice metadata model made up of 15 elements."> <META NAME="DC.Creator" CONTENT="Nicolas Nova"> </HEAD>

Dublin Core Element descriptions :

1. TITLE. The name given to the resource by the CREATOR or PUBLISHER. 2. AUTHOR or CREATOR. The person(s) or organization(s) primarily responsible for the intellectual content of the resource. 3. SUBJECT or KEYWORDS. The topic of the resource, or keywords, phrases, or classification descriptors that describe the subject or content of the resource. 4. DESCRIPTION. A textual description of the content of the resource, including abstracts in the case of document-like objects or content description in the case of visual resources. 5. PUBLISHER. The entity responsible for making the resource available in its present form, such as a publisher, a university department, or a corporate entity. 6. OTHER CONTRIBUTORS. Person(s) or organization(s) in addition to those specified in the CREATOR element who have made significant intellectual contributions to the resource, but whose contribution is secondary to the individuals or entities specified in the CREATOR element. 7. DATE. The date the resource was made available in its present form. 8. RESOURCE TYPE. The category of the resource, such as home page, novel, poem, working paper, technical report, essay, dictionary. It is expected that RESOURCE TYPE will be chosen from enumerated list of types. 9. FORMAT. The data representation of the resource, such as text/html, ASCII, Postscript file, executable application, or JPEG image. FORMAT will be assigned from enumerated lists such as registered Internet Media Types (MIME types). The MIME types are defined according to the RFC2046 standard. Currently, the only option available is the text/html option. 10. RESOURCE IDENTIFIER. String or number used to uniquely identify the resource. Examples from networked resources include URLs and URNs (when implemented). 11. SOURCE. The work, either print or electronic, from which this resource is delivered, if applicable. 12. LANGUAGE. Language(s) of the intellectual content of the resource. 13. RELATION. Relationship to other resources. Formal specification of RELATION is currently under development. 14. COVERAGE. The spatial locations and temporal durations characteristics of the resource. Formal specification of COVERAGE is currently under development. 15. RIGHTS MANAGEMENT. The content of this element is intended to be a link (a URL or other suitable URI as appropriate) to a copyright notice, a rights-management statement, or perhaps a server that would provide such information in a dynamic way.

mudlondon : "gonzo geographical data collection"

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Mudlondon is a collaborative mapping project: building of an interactive map of London, accessible via an instant messaging bot.

It consists of geographical models which are represented as RDF graphs. you can wander round them, like a MUD or MOO, with a bot interface which you can use to create and connect new places. They propose a model of london, with grid location data about places and the connections between them. t is a semantic web project; it provides a scheme for semantic web identification of places via unique uris. the interaction with people aspect uses FOAF, in the hope that friend-of-a-friend networks can benefit from collaborative filtering as well as collaborative mapping.

Users can search for a place name, create, connect and annotate spaces. I like this idea of information bot as a "stateful conversational interface". Users talks with a bot (AIM, jabber) and interact with it (it is an aspect of the semantic web). I really like this idea :

If location-based, mobile services are going to become essential to my lifestyle, like my mobile phone has, I'd like to have an alternative to near-monopolistic commercial offerings. When I'm walking down a London backstreet and my mobile-of-the-future points out that I might enjoy that beer in that pub over there, I'd rather that was a friend of a friend, and not News International telling me so.

Paper recap : Thomas Erickson about Space and Social Interactions

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Thomas Erickson's paper From Interface to Interplace: The Spatial Environment as a Medium for Interaction published in the Proceedings of Conference on Spatial Information Theory in 1993 should be considered a seminal step to show to what extent spatial feature is a medium for social interaction and joint activity. He began by presenting an example of joint activity (30 authors met and jointly created an organization for the book from scratch by spread each chapter on the floor) in which he exposed several points :

- it seemed important that the process was carried out in a bounded space, dedicated to the task
- the participants had assigned meanings to parts of the space
- actions in that space were meaningful
- physical constraints shaped the way in which people could participate in the
organizational process. - properties of space can usefully structure and facilitate interactions.

He then explained how MUD space tailored to particular kinds of interactions were constructed (that is, the participants understood the meanings of the spaces).

From MUD experiments as well as rhetoric argumentation, he presents the properties of space that affect interaction :

- Objects can Generate and Catalyze Interactions ("evocative objects") : capture people's attention, and encourage interaction. Objects can also catalyze direct interactions between people. - Spatial Constraints can Generate Activity (example : As pedestrians wait for the light to change, they study the headlines and perhaps decide to buy a paper. When the traffic is moving, people wait and tend to buy papers; when the light turns red and traffic stops, pedestrians hurry across the street, and are less likely to buy papers. In a real sense, the traffic light is helping to sell papers by making people pause.) - Spatial Elements may be used to Structure Activity : Marine [10] observed that people waiting to use an automated teller station typically left a gap between the head of the line and the person using the machine. This in itself isn't surprising: entering a secret code to withdraw cash is regarded as private activity. - Place is Space with Meaning : people understand a lot about particular types of space--they see meaning in space (people understand that particular types of places have very generic functions). - Places often reflect their history - Ritual and Place: Places can Suggest Types of Interaction (losely associated with the fact that places have meanings, is that places often have activities associated with them. One way of capturing this is through the concept of ritual).

In 1993, he set the framework for the last ten years concerning the use of space as a metaphor to foster interaction in virtual environment.

Distinction between Space and Place (321)

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Via Lainer, R. and I. Wagner, 1998. “Connecting Qualities of Social Use with Spatial Qualities”. In Proceedings of CoBuild98. Streitz, N., S. Konomi, and H. Burkhardt (Eds.), Heidelberg: Springer. Still the same discussion about the distinction between Space and Place :

This discussion also suggests to distinguish between place and space. While place focuses on the groundedness of what and how it is done in a particular context of people, environment, history, etc., emphasizing the specific contextuality, situatedness of social action and the needs for boundaries, space contains and structures activities in ways that are embedded in and interwoven with other parts of the environment. From this perspective space can be seen as an interweaving of infrastructures

This reminds me what Harrison and Dourish (1996) proposed :

Space is the structure of the world; it is the three-dimensional environment, in which objects and events occur, and in which they have relative position and direction. The properties of space are those which derive from that definition (...) Physically, a place is a space which is invested with understandings of behavioural appropriateness, cultural expectations, and so forth. We are located in ``space'', but we act in ``place''. Furthermore, ``places'' are spaces that are valued. The distinction is rather like that between a ``house'' and a ``home''; a house might keep out the wind and the rain, but a home is where we live.

I also like the use of the Tschumi’s idea of “architecture not as an object (or work, in structuralist terms), but as an ‘interaction of space and events’” (1981)

Place research : Luigina Ciolfi's paper

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I finished Luigina Ciolfi's paper Understanding Spaces as Places: Extending Interaction Design Paradigms. The author underlined the very notion of the importance of considering spaces as place (nothing's new since Harrison and Dourish, 1996), and analysing those features of a place that are going to shape users' interaction. The good point is that she gives two nice references : - Erickson, T., 1993. "From Interface to Interplace: The Spatial Environment as a Medium for Interaction", Proceedings of the European Conference on Spatial Information Theory. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 1993. - Lainer, R. and I. Wagner, 1998. “Connecting Qualities of Social Use with Spatial Qualities”. In Proceedings of CoBuild98. Streitz, N., S. Konomi, snd H. Burkhardt (Eds.), Heidelberg: Springer.

I like this part :

On the methodological side, introducing a new set of issues for analysis (such as the connections between cultural factors and the way the physical space is arranged and perceived) means also reconsidering existing design practice and subsequently extending and enhancing current methodologies. For example, the data collection phase should include surveys on the particular spatial arrangements of the environments, and observation sessions focused on the features of the physical space and aspects of place appreciation and presence expressed by the users in that environment.

It is always the same statement as in the paper we wrote for CSCW as said in CSCW Challenging Perspectives on Work and Technology (1994) by Liam Bannon

Attempts to design CSCW technologies, then, must be grounded in a thorough understanding of ongoing work processes and how they are supported (or not) by the physical layout, artifacts, information systems and databases, as well as the social relationships and arrangements of the workplace

Interaction Design for Alternative City Tourisms

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I just read From Bovine Horde to Urban Players: Multidisciplinary Interaction Design for Alternative City Tourisms byAnne Galloway, Martin Ludvigsen, Hillevi Sundholm and Alan Munro.

I like the concept of co-dependency versus isolating experience concerning the balance of power between the tourist and the local. The artifacts the authors proposed (the tour t-shirt and the cube) are nice way to turn an isolated activity (visiting a city with a map) into a joint activity (visiting a city by engaging tourists and inhabitants into a shared experience). Both of the interactants can hence benefits from the outcome of the interaction.

Situation Awareness (still!)

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Still about Situation Awareness, via An Exploration of Techniques to Improve Relative Distance Judgments within an Exocentric Display from Gina Crvarich :

Situation awareness consists of several components, including spatial awareness. Spatial awareness refers to an individual's understanding of the three-dimensional (3D) geometry of a particular environment. The need for adequate spatial awareness can range from military mission applications, where understanding the relative position of allies and enemies is important, to medical applications where understanding the relative location of organs and tumors within the environment of a human body is critical. In general, spatial awareness becomes vital when someone needs to understand the spatial relationships of elements within an environment in order to effectively accomplish a mission or task. Virtual environment interfaces provide many approaches for representing 3D space and thus may be useful in communicating spatial awareness so that an individual may successfully complete the intended mission.

The research focuses on the re-creation of several specific depth and distance cues in order to see their effect on relative distance judgments made within a computer-generated 3D space. The goal of this research is to determine each feature's effect on making relative distance judgments so that recommendations can be provided for those individuals designing 3D exocentric spatial displays.

Situation Awareness Outdoor !

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Via geo outdoors, Situation Awareness appears to be as meaningful for geo wankers as for military :

S.A. stands for Situation Awareness and good pilots are continually thinking about it. They're aware that it constantly changes, and they are prepared for the scenarios that alternate situations may present. (...) Having Good S.A. Includes Awareness of: - The time of day (How many hours of light are there?)
- The relative remoteness of your location (highway road cut, Alaskan wilderness, abandoned mine, etc.)
-The type of terrain (traveling over sand dunes is slower than walking along a railroad spur.)
-The topographic relief.
- The current weather.
- The pending weather.
- The amount of work left to complete.
- Threats to the wellbeing of you and your crew (man-made, animals, plants, falling off a cliff, etc.)
- The location of your field crew and/or partner relative to you.
- The NUMBER of people on your crew. (VERY important!)
- The location of your vehicle or camp relative to you.
- Equipment and consumables readily at hand (water, radios, first-aid kit, signaling devices, etc.)
- Your (and your crew's) skill level and experience as they pertain to all of the above.

Mobile Technologies and Boundaryless Spaces

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Via Mobile Technologies and Boundaryless Spaces: Slavish Lifetsyles, Seductive Meanderings, or Creative Empowerment Dholakia, N. and D. Swick (2003) :

Physically, a place is a space which is invested with understandings of behavioral appropriateness, cultural expectations, and so forth. We are located in “space”, but we act in “place” (Harrison & Dourish, 1996). Harrison and Dourish see space as somewhat of a second-order construct from which a “place” emerges through the actions of actors. For example, a theater is simply a three-dimensional space like many other three-dimensional spaces. What makes it a place we call theater (and not cathedral, mall, school, etc.) is the nature of the actions and interactions that take place among the actor within that space. The enactment of space, however, is not completely random. “The structure of the space around us moulds and guides our actions and interactions”. (Harrison & Dourish, 1996) Of course, Harrison and Dourish’s emphasis on practice is somewhat problematic for analytical purposes because it overlooks the power of language to signify (e.g., a theater is a theater because we call it that and we all accept this signification as true). The notion of enacting place is nonetheless useful because it hints at the constructed nature of place (e.g., a theater is a theater if and only if the actors in that space perform like they are in a theater). Mobile technologies add another layer of complexity to the process of denaturing of space because the enactment of a space, thus its transformation into a place, is increasingly done by the mobile cyborg. Portable devices expose us to incoming and outgoing information flows anytime, anywhere, making a collective and continuous experience of space and place less and less likely. Mobile technologies provide users with the phenomenological freedom to experience a space, any space, in a uniquely individual way, therefore creating their own “temporal place”. The result is total polysemy of place, without any natural or original context to draw from.

OrangeImagineering

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OrangeImagineering based in London and Boston is the applied research and development group of OrangeWorld with the mission to explore and prototype future products, services and customer experiences. Specific projects :- wearables and smart clothing - wirefree appliances - personal area networks - technology radar - virtual receptionist - life services - presence and location

A reasearch project idea

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Designing location-based services for ??? -> define scenarios for collaboration between student with mobile stuff

Process : 1. Investigation of the "privacy" issue in several public spaces: Hospitals, schools, supermarkets, travel, workspaces, households 2. Search for communalities and creation of clusters 3. Generation of multiple scenarios of services 4. Development of the service idea 5. Test on few users -> insights

Transit(s) - l'Observatoire des Nomades

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Transit(s) - l'Observatoire des Nomades est une cellule de veille socio-marketing destinée à évaluer l'influence de la mobilité sur nos modes de vie, et la création de nouveaux produits et de nouveaux services.

- Les gares vont-elles devenir des centres commerciaux et les stations de métro des espaces de travail ? - Les aéroports se transformeront-ils en aéro-villes et les aires d'autoroutes en "oasis d'urbanité"? - Fera-t-on bientôt du télé-achat dans les trains, les voitures ou les avions? - Verra-t-on les bureaux regroupés dans des chaînes hôtelières spécialisées?

Pour aller plus loin : - Transit - Les temps et lieux de la mobilité - F. Bellanger, B. Marzloff - Ed. de l'Aube - 1996. - Planète nomade - F. Bellanger, M. Devos - Ed. de l'Aube - 1997. - Y a-t-il un passager dans l'avion ? - F. Bellanger, M. Devos - Ed. de l'Aube - 1999.

Importance of spatial feature in collaborative problem solving

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I would like to sketch a framework/model of how spatial feature are important and relevant for collaborative problem solving. Roschelle and Teasley (1995) state that: “collaboration is a coordinated, synchronous activity that is the result of a continued attempt to construct and maintain a shared conception of a problem”. These authors also propose the notion of joint problem space to explain what is going on during collaboration: “ (…) Social interactions in the context of problem solving activity occur in relation to a Joint Problem Space (JPS). The JPS is a shared knowledge structure that supports problem solving activity by integrating (a) goals (b) descriptions of the current problem state, (c) awareness of available problem solving actions, and (d) associations that relate goals, features of the current problem state, and available actions." Hence, collaboration is a process of solving a problem and maintaining a shared conception of the situation (the JPS) by integrating information during the task. This understanding of the task is continually shaped and reshaped during the course of the interaction.

In the context of my PhD (that would like to focus on the effectiveness of locative media), information about space and spatial features (like location, area, division of zones...) could enrich the joint problem space described previously. There is hence an overlap between the JPS and real space.

The point of such a model would be to describe the relations between spatial features and the joint problem space.