"Ubiquitous Computing is fundamentally characterized by the connection of things in the world with computation" (M. Weiser)
The latest Smart-Its technology
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News
2004: New Smart-Its Versions under the Particle Web-Site
July 2003: Exhibition at SIGGRAPH 2003 in San Diego.
June 2003: New Software available
May 2003: New Smart-Its Versions: 15x25 mm (left: Communication Board), 17x30mm (right: Sensor Board)
Overall Project Vision
The Smart-Its project is interested in a far-reaching vision of computation embedded in the world. In this vision, mundane everyday artefacts become augmented as soft media, able to enter into dynamic digital relationships. In our project, we approach this vision with development of "Smart-Its" - small-scale embedded devices that can be attached to everyday objects to augment them with sensing, perception, computation, and communication. We think of these "Smart-Its" as enabling technology for building and testing ubiquitous computing scenarios, and we will use them to study emerging functionality and collective context-awareness of information artefacts.
Smart-Its vision and development
Smart-Its are small computing devices intended to be attached to everyday objects. Just like Post-Its enhance an object with additional information Smart-Its enhance an object with additional perception, computing and communication capabilities. By doing so, enhanced or new functionality emerge from existing objects (for examples see applications section) TecO's vision is to provide a generic platform in software and hardware for enhancing everyday objects with small computers. TecO develops a rapid prototyping environment where an object may be enhanced within an hour using the Smart-Its hardware and software. The parts of TecO's developement system consits of
- Smart-Its RF communication, computing and simple sensing board
- Smart-Its generic sensor board (to be connected to the Smart-Its RF board)
- Smart-Its application programming interface and OS for application development of Smart-Its
- Smart-Its application programming interface for PC based services
- Smart-Its bridge for backend (ethernet / IP) communication
TecO has produced about 160 sensor and about 140 sensor boards (most of them are handed out to research partners). The current release including all information about hardware, software and status can be found in the release section.
Smart-Its project and the Disappearing Computer Initiative
Smart-Its is a collaboration of research institutions in Finland, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. The project is part of the initiative "The Disappearing Computer" [www.cordis.lu/ist/fetdc.htm], funded by the European Commission to explore future and emerging technologies for everyday life. Information about other projects fundend in the disappearing Computer inititative can be found under www.disappearing-computer.org
Michael Beigl Juli 30, 2003