Anonymity is Relative
As it turns out, “revealing where one lives and works at the granularity of census blocks is uniquely identifying for a majority of the U.S. working population.” Anonymous location data really isn’t.
UbiComp
The Internet Of Things – Are You Ready?
As more and more “things”, such as sensor-based electronics get connected, they become content providers and consumers – creating, requesting and providing data to each other, making up an “Internet of Things.”
Sense The Excitement
Smartphones are so much more than the average computer, and the magic lies in the sensors. Unlike traditional computers, smartphone can sense location, position and acceleration and so much more. This is a huge, technological leap forward that enables many applications that were not possible before.
Make Your Laundry Tweet You When It’s Done
For ages, I’ve wanted to create an Arduino project that will sit in my laundry room (shared in a small complex) and monitor whether the machines are being used or not, so we don’t have to keep checking. But now, a kickstarter project called Twine has beat me to by creating a cool new product to notify you based on sensor information that you can setup. It’s a versatile product that could have many creative uses.
Awarepoint – UbiComp for the Healthcare Industry
Awarepoint provides a Real Time Location System for healthcare that is non-intrusive in that it doesn’t require users to change their behaviour, but instead integrates into their environment and provides benefit through improving patient care and reducing risks and errors. It uses a proprietary Zigbee-based protocol which means the tags used for tracking the interactions need no recharging for the life of the product.
The Nightmare of Ubiquitous Chargers
Remember the future the way we imagined it back in the day? Where everything was magically all-knowing and connected – Your home detected when you returned and played your tunes, lit up the walls with your favorite art and warmed the house up just the way you like it. Why did the dream of ubiquitous computing degenerate into the nightmare of ubiquitous chargers? How might low-power wireless technologies like Bluetooth Low Energy save it?