Intelligent Spaces

Intelligent Spaces: The Application of Pervasive ICT sets out a vision where Information & Communication Technology (ICT) moves from the PC on the desktop out into the physical world, and becomes pervasive. The world about us will appear to have real intelligence embedded in it, creating what we term "Intelligent Spaces" or "iSpaces", which will augment and support virtually every human activity. An iSpace consists of • The physical world in which the user exists, in his/her relevant context. • The interface between the digital world and the physical world. This contains embedded sensors to gather data, labels to identify objects, actuators to control things/appliances in the physical world, together with support software to facilitate non-intrusive two-way communication across the interface, • The digital world in which digital knowledge and intelligent systems are available to intelligently analyse data gathered from the physical world, and to influence and support our actions in that physical world. Intelligent Spaces: The Application of Pervasive ICT describes the vision and how it has already been demonstrated in a number of applications ranging from the home, healthcare and traffic systems to monitoring glaciers. It identifies many of the technical, human and business issues which need to be researched before the benefits can become widespread, and describes possible solutions to them.