The development of Smart-Its for building smart environments is discussed. Smart-Its are small, self-contained, stick-on computers that attach to everyday objects. These augmented objects become soft media, enabling dynamic digital relationships with users and each other. A Smart-Its consists of a core board with a wireless transceiver to let the device communicate with other Smart-Its, plus a sensor board that gives the Smart-Its data about its sorroundings. The major advantage of the system is that it allows designers and researchers to construct responsive or intelligent environments.@en

Ubiquitous computing is giving rise to applications that interact very closely with activity in the real world, usually involving instrumentation of environments. In contrast, we propose Cooperative Artefacts that are able to cooperatively assess their situation in the world, without need for supporting infrastructure in the environment The Cooperative Artefact concept is based on embedded domain knowledge, perceptual intelligence, and rule-based inference in movable artefacts. We demonstrate the concept with design and implementation of augmented chemical containers that are able to detect and alert potentially hazardous situations concerning their storage.

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Ambient intelligent applications require applications to recognise user activity calmly in the background, typically by instrumentation of environments. In contrast, we propose the concept of Cooperative Artefacts (CAs) to instrument single artefacts that cooperate with each other to acquire knowledge about their situation in the world. CAs do not rely on external infrastructure as they implement their architectural components, i.e. perceptual intelligence, domain knowledge and a rule-based inference engine, on embedded devices. We describe the design and implementation of the CA concept on an embedded systems platform and present a case study that demonstrates the potential of the CA approach for activity recognition. In the case study we track surface-based activity of users by augmenting a table and household goods.

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