intelligent spaces — the vision, the opportunities and the barriers

BT Technology Journal • Vol 22 No 3 • July 2004 15

Intelligent spaces — the vision, the opportunities and the barriers

S Wright and A Steventon

Spaces can become intelligent when large numbers of sensors and appliances with embedded processors are able tocommunicate with each other and become part of the global information network. They can then be integrated intogeographically defined intelligent spaces (iSpaces) to satisfy specific needs for humans.

This overview paper outlines a vision for intelligent spaces and points to examples of application areas which will benefitfrom the technology. It describes the system components, the drivers and some of the research needed to create viableimplementations of the overall vision. The paper is intended to demonstrate the full breadth both of the technology and ofits areas of application.

1. A vision of intelligent spacesThe objective of the themed papers in this edition is toexplore the vision of a world where information andcommunication technology (ICT) moves from the PC onthe desktop out into the physical world, and becomespervasive. In this world of pervasive ICT, physical objectsand spaces are linked to the digital world, andinformation about the physical world can be used toaugment human functionality and experience. Theworld about us can appear to have intelligenceembedded in it, as it seeks to support our humanactivities. This vision is similar to that described byWeiser [1] and others [2—5], though we prefer to usethe term ‘intelligent spaces’, or iSpaces, to emphasiseour initial focus on bounded applications.

We have built on the vision developed in the earlierwork [1], and used it to drive our research programmewithin BT. We are not unique in this; for example, a verysimilar vision (‘ambient intelligence’) has been used todrive research within the EU 6th Framework programme[5]. It is emerging as a realisable vision because of majordevelopments in technology in a number of areas.These developments (which are described in more detailbelow, and in the complementary papers in this edition)are bringing ICT into the physical world through thefollowing capabilities.

• Embed digital links into the physical world

We are able to link the physical and digital worlds.For example, static information or identity can beembedded into real world objects, such as radio

frequency (RFID) tags. Additionally, increasinglysophisticated sensor systems are being developed,and dynamic parameters or events in the physicalworld can be converted into digital information.

• Communicate physical state everywhere

We can embed wireless communications into evensmall physical components. State or events fromthe physical world can be communicated locally andglobally. Increasingly, this will give us global accessto rich, diverse and dynamic data about thephysical world around us.

• Process and mine data

We are already generating vast amounts of datafrom the digital world. We will be adding increasingamounts of dynamic data about the real world. Thiscan have immense benefits, but only in so far as weare able to extract meaning, and draw intelligentand sensitive inferences from it

Taken together, these provide powerful newcapabilities to system designers, and can be used toimprove our abilities to sense, and make sense of, thephysical world about us, and to use this knowledge toaugment our capabilities as we deal with this world, orto augment our experience of it. This is illustrated inFig 1, which represents a system which is able to sense anumber of parameters of the physical world, draw someinferences from this data, and recommend (or eventake) an action in the physical world.


BT Technology Journal • Vol 22 No 3 • July 200416

Over the next two decades the tens of billions ofembedded processors which already exist will grow totrillions. Many will acquire a communications capability,which most commonly will be short range wireless.Many will connect to the Internet, either directly or viaintermediaries, resulting in a trillion globallycommunicative intelligent objects by 2020. These willprovide a wide range of information and sensory dataabout the physical world. An application will have theability to gather information from appropriate sourcesthat help it achieve its objectives. The application canthen provide information or control signals to achievethe desired actions. This technology could have asignificant beneficial impact on virtually every area ofhuman endeavour, provided it is designed andimplemented in a way which takes account of the needsof users and society.

The iSpace technology concept is that of ‘thedisappearing computer’ — where the computationaldemands of the system are utterly non-intrusive andinterfaces are so intuitive they are unperceived. Inpractice, this means the system and its interfacesmediate interactions with humans passively, but ofcourse can be driven or overridden by humans directly.Because the technology can accept, interpret or infer ina highly personalised and contextualised manner it canassist virtually everyone by taking into account theirabilities, and hence take us closer to universal digitalaccess.

This is a grand and beneficient vision, but it is also avision that can excite polarised reactions. There aremany people who have concerns over increasingtechnology-driven intrusion and control in our lives, withthe associated threats to civil liberties and personalprivacy. There are causes for legitimate concern here(though it must be said that the level of public concern

often outstrips the reality, both of the technologicalcapability and of the business intent). In some of theareas where this technology could be applied, societywill have to work through the trade-offs between costsand benefits, either in the market-place or through thelegislative process.

2. ApplicationsOn the whole, our observation is that the visiondescribed above is not a distant and dystopian world. Itis a world that is coming into being step by step, and itis moving forward fastest in those areas where thebenefits clearly outweigh the costs, and where there isstrong value for all the actors in the value chain (or thevalue net). We will illustrate this by describing a numberof example applications, both current and potential.

2.1 Example applications

2.1.1 Supply chainRFID tags are digital labels that can be attached tocomponents, to give them a digital identity that can besimply read at various stages in the supply chain [6, 7].It is an application with high value to participants in thesupply chain, where it has the potential to improveefficiency. It is already being applied widely toaggregations of goods down to the pallet level. Justrecently, a number of important retailers haveannounced to their suppliers their intent to introducethis in the retail context. The objective is to improveretail efficiency, both in staff time and in better stockcontrol and less lost sales.

2.1.2 Environmental monitoringThis technology will enable the monitoring ofenvironmental variables at a much higher precision andgranularity than by existing techniques. Early research

Internet

action

sense

information

process/analyse

Fig 1 Schematic of generic iSpace system.



examples of this are being applied to coastal erosion,flooding and glacial movement [8, 9]. The availability ofricher and more precise data may well strain existingmodels and theories for these (or related) processes. Inturn, one can imagine the consequences of improvedpredictive capability on agriculture, governmentregulation and the insurance industry.

2.1.3 Leisure experiencesSeveral very interesting experiments use this technologyto create richer and more responsive museum or cityguides [10, 11]. In the right situations and with the rightcontent, these are proving to be very successful.Moreover, the same or similar systems can be used tocreate new classes of leisure experiences (situatedgames, for example), and artistic creations. This is anarea of application where we can expect to see someexciting developments and experiments.

2.1.4 Health careThere are several potential applications in health care,and the most developed are in the monitoring of thestate of health of patients with some illness or disability,either for diagnostic or preventative purposes. Forexample, there is a high level of interest in continuousmonitoring of frail, elderly patients, to allow them tocontinue to live in their own homes, and so greatlyreducing the cost of care [12].

There are many other opportunities to supporthealth care professionals in various activities, with theaspirational goal of creating an intelligent hospital [13].

2.1.5 Emergency responseIn emergency situations, lives can be saved if the rightinformation can be delivered at exactly the right time(accidents, rescues, medical aid). This may be route-finding or diagnostic guidance, or warning of hazards. Itwill be important to deliver the information so that itdoes not distract or intrude.

2.1.6 Intelligent carTo give an introductory example of what is achievabletoday, consider the technology in the high-end car. It isprobably the nearest we have currently to an iSpace,with over 100 silicon chips providing engine, control,safety and occupant information systems. It is currentlya nearly closed system with extensive on-boardcommunication between the 100 chips, but only radio,mobile telephone and navigation or tracking systemsextending significantly beyond the vehicle. Theautomobile manufacturers have very carefully designedand evolved many features to augment the driver’sexperience and not supplant it, resulting not only inhigh levels of acceptability, but also in a highly desirableproduct sold at a premium. Our vision is that many

other spaces could eventually acquire similar levels ofin-built intelligence, and the application areas will moveto increasingly pervasive scenarios. The care in design,user awareness and market development shown by carmanufacturers will undoubtedly be needed in otherapplication areas if they are to be successful.

2.2 A framework for applicationsThis set of example applications covers a wide area, interms of their characteristics, but they all fit in with themodel described above in Fig 1. We have also foundFig 2 a useful way of distinguishing between thedifferent types of application.

Fig 2 Schematic showing the degrees of autonomy and complexity of iSpace application areas.

At one extreme (A), there are the applications wherethe advantage comes from the improved and fine-grained monitoring of the real world (supply chain,environmental monitoring). Pervasive ICT, throughcheap embedded tagging, tracking or sensing, willenable businesses to monitor assets and processes at aprecision and granularity that was not previouslypossible, and in real time. Benefit flows from theavailability of this data, and from our ability to mine andinterpret it. In most cases, this means that the datamust all be brought together for mining and interpret-ation, if only virtually, in a centralised architecture. Ingeneral, it is in these types of application where there ismost concern over privacy of personal data.

At another extreme (B), there are a class ofapplications where benefit flows from the availability oflocal information, extra information from the digitalworld about the user’s physical context. These areexemplified by, for example, heritage guides oraugmented art/museum experiences. These can oftenbe implemented with an autonomous architecture,where users can gain access to the information or

trafficmanagement

environmentalsensing

supply chainheritage trail

street theatre

C

AB

autonomous centralised

complexityof model

sensor networks

emergency response

Telecare

situated games



experience without necessarily revealing their context toanyone else.

These are both interesting classes of the applicationof pervasive ICT, and one can point to the first, realemerging applications of both classes. Even in theirmost basic form, these are applications that support oraugment our experience of the world, or ourproductivity, and they are first steps towards thecreation of intelligent spaces. We believe that the mostcompelling and valuable examples of intelligent spacesmay arise towards point (C), as we develop richer andmore subtle ways of capturing and modelling humaninteraction with the physical world, and as we find theright form of interaction between man and machine,between autonomous action and global inference.Systems of this form are exemplified by current researchto support emergency response teams and even combattroops, in stressful and life-threatening situations (asdescribed above).

We are convinced iSpace technology is now at thetake-off stage due to advances in the capabilities andthe cost reductions of all the relevant technologies,combined with a clearer understanding of the researchand development needed to solve some of the gaps. Weare now able to visualise integrated solutions to a rangeof real-world applications, despite the incrediblecomplexity of the systems.

3. Technology capabilitiesA generic application as exemplified by the previousoutlines of an iCar will be a complex, dynamic andusually heterogeneous integration of:

• hardware — labels, sensors, actuators, processors,

• software — generic systems, artificial intelligence,software learning and analysis systems, application-specific systems,

• domain models,

• communications systems.

A representative system architecture for an iSpace isshown schematically in Fig 3.

We will refer to three classes of physical entity in theworld of iSpaces, and we can use Fig 4 to describe themmore precisely.

• Interfaces — labels, sensors and actuators

These are components which link the physical anddigital world. The simplest example might be aswitch, or a keyboard, but this class would alsoinclude a video camera, for example.

• iSpaces — intelligent spaces

A collection of labels, sensors and actuators withsome processing intelligence associated with them,which together form a system which is able to sensea number of parameters of the physical world, drawsome inferences from this data, and recommend (oreven take) an action in the physical world. We thinkof an iSpace as a complete system, containing somekind of model of the ‘space’, and a set of appli-cations that improve our abilities to sense and makesense of the physical world about us, and use thisknowledge to augment our capabilities as we dealwith this world, or to augment our experience of it.

Fig 3 Generic iSpace architecture showing hardware and software functionalities needed.

iSpacesmodels

applications

labels,sensors andactuators

interfacesupport

communications infrastructure

accesscontrol inference

engines

datarepository

useruser

context

inte

rfac

e

physical world digital world



• iThings — intelligent things

Some of the components of the iSpace will berealised in physical entities in the iSpace, and someof the components may be implemented on remoteinfrastructure. We use the term iThings to meanwhat it says — intelligent subsystems of an iSpacethat are in the iSpace.

3.1 Hardware advancesA range of the enabling hardware advances aredescribed in Macdonald and Payne [14]. The mostsalient aspects are described below.

• Cheap powerful chips, embedded silicon, acontinuing route to cost reduction.

The continuing increase of chip power described by‘Moore’s Law’ [14] will allow increasingly complexprocessing, to analyse data or to optimise anautomatic recommendation or action. In particular,this will allow the complex analysis of video andimage data from embedded image sensors [15—17].

However, the advances in silicon also result indecreasing costs of embedded chips at lowcomputational complexity. There are newtechnologies, at the research stages, where current

printable electronic functions could be enhanced byprintable active devices [18]. These may only havevery low processing power, and operate at very lowspeed, but that is all that is needed for vastnumbers of the components within iSpaces. Thus,at one end of the scale, a billion transistor chipsenabling advances in modelling and artificialintelligence will be in production by 2007, and atthe other chips (already attached to some retailgoods) might become ultra-low cost, ultra-highvolume silicon or through direct printing. Theprinting of electronics on labels, packages andfabrics is still at the research stage but maintainsthe existing evolution path for the introduction ofembedded intelligence to ever lower value items,including disposable and consumable ones.

• Miniaturisation

The miniaturisation of chips, smart sensors and, toa lesser extent, actuators enables the easierattachment of smart features to a wide range ofitems. Smallness allows not just invisibility and thepossibility of making ever smaller items smart, butalso increasingly simpler or easier attachmenttechnologies. The attachment processesthemselves are a significant cost deterrent for low-cost consumer goods. Self-adhesive labels should

Fig 4 The components of an intelligent space.

iSpacesmodels

applications

labels,sensors and

actuators

interfacesupport

communications infrastructure

accesscontrol inference

engines

datarepository

user

inte

rfac

e

physical world digital world

iThing iSpace

interfaces

sensor



not only carry barcode type identifiers or radiofrequency ID (RFID) tags, but also sensors to trackproduct history or state (undesirable moisture, low/high temperatures, decay, etc), intelligence andcommunicability. The Smart Dust concept at UCBerkeley is an excellent example of this [3]; see alsoPister’s views of the impact of smart dusttechnology by 2010 and 2020 [19].

• Power sourcing

Power sourcing has been improved through fourmain routes [14]:

— the ever shorter transistor gates driving Moore’slaw also drive voltage and power reductions in thebasic circuits — this really is a win/win situation,

— there have been huge advances in activelymanaging the powering of individual chips, or partsof a chip, so unused circuitry is only powered whenneeded,

— battery technology has improved dramatically,

— power scavenging techniques are advancing, andextending rapidly beyond just solar powering — thiscategory could also include techniques where aread request signal also provides the requiredpower to trigger the response, passive RFID tagsand optically read sensors being examples, but onecan anticipate further extensions of this approach.

3.2 Universal connectivityiSpaces take advantage of whatever communicationslinks are readily available, and will undoubtedly causeconsiderable increase in both the complexity ofcommunications and alter the communications trafficpatterns/statistics, causing new communicationsnetwork issues [20]. They will benefit from theincreasing ability of linking a diverse range of tetherlesslinks (radio, optical, acoustic) to fixed infrastructure viaa highly heterogeneous set of technologies andprotocols. The links will include everything from veryshort range to global links.

• Web presence

The universal connectivity will allow and include aWeb presence to virtually any device, anywhere,providing universal access to information andresources.

• Grid technology

For many applications, distributed, embedded ornetworked processors will cope with the iSpacedemands; however, the iSpace applications couldinvolve very large numbers of inputs each requiringvery large amounts of on-line computation. This

includes health systems, health research systems,safety systems, etc. Grid technology seemseminently suitable to tackle this sort of problem.

3.3 Software techniquesIt is clear that there is an extensive requirement forcomplex and very advanced software to satisfy thefunctions needed in Fig 1. Fortunately many of theadvances driven by the needs of current informationtechnologies, such as knowledge management, speechrecognition and synthesis, image analysis, videoanalysis, data mining, intelligent data analysis, datafusion, scheduling, computational linguistics, etc, willprovide a strong basis for iSpace solutions. Also thosetechnologies are being pushed ever closer to the levelsof computational understanding that are necessary fornatural human interaction. For example, soft computing[21, 22] is enabling digital technology to cope withhuman types of imprecision, vagueness and ambiguity.Thus the software stage already provides many toolswhich will enable the creation of true solutions toselected examples of the iSpace vision. However, thefuller range of applications will need ongoing researchto integrate many different elements of thesetechnologies into viable systems, and also to meet themany new challenges.

4. Roadmap to the visionWe have described the ultimate vision of an intelligentspace, where the world around us provides us withintelligent and contextually relevant support. The intentis to bring ICT out into the real world, to improve ourlives. It is a challenging vision, and there are manybarriers on the path to its realisation. Many of thesebarriers are technical, but there are also manysignificant (and perhaps rather more challenging)human and economic barriers. We can group theseunder the following headings.

• Where is the value?

Where are the compelling products and servicesthat are enabled by this technology, and that willgenerate significant revenue in the world?

• Can we deliver this value?

Can we develop appropriate ambient interfacesthat allow us to access environmentally embeddedintelligence? Can we develop appropriately richmodels that allow us to augment human capabilityin anything more than trivial and limited examples?Are we prepared to delegate control to inanimateintelligence? Are we prepared to expose our actionsand desires to an impersonal infrastructure?



• How do we deliver the value?

How does the infrastructure come into being, andhow is it supported? What are the sustainableecosystems that will deliver these services ?

These are quite challenging questions, and there isno obvious and compelling ‘killer application’ withenough value to drive the investment required for apervasive infrastructure. On the other hand, there is aset of trials and implementations taking place thatsuggest that the value is there, in a number of specificapplication areas.

For example, a number of organisations are runningtrials on the use of RFID for asset tracking, especially forsupply chain management for the retail industry (seeFig 5) [23]. The belief is that these investments will payfor themselves through efficiencies and increased

turnover (reduction in sales lost through poor stockcontrol). This is an example of a centralised system ofpervasive monitoring, and since it is restricted to thesupply chain itself it does not threaten personal privacy.

Similarly, there have been a number of trials andexperiments on heritage and museum guides. As thecapability of hand-held devices and mobile bandwidthhas improved, the utility and user value has tended toincrease significantly, especially when due attention ispaid to the quality of the content [24, 25]. One canenvisage more personalised and interactive forms ofguides, the creation of new situated events andexperiences, as well as new generations of situatedgaming. We expect to see continuing development inthe evolution of intelligent spaces for new leisure andartistic activities, accelerated by the increasingavailability of mobile broadband access to the Internetthrough Wi-Fi access points.

Fig 5 Trial system for the use of RFID labels to improve the retail supply chain [22].

1. intelligentlabel

2. intelligentlabel added to

garment

3. scanned byassociation unit

4. despatched todistribution centre

5. stored indistribution centre

6. sales advisor uses mobile scanner to check stock on

display

7. distribution centre team pick new stock

based on accurate data

8. missing sizes and stylesdelivered to store

9. every size and styleavailable for customer

10. customer removes label after purchase

secure computer holdsstock detail in

database

microchip holds a unique number, e.g.

01101100

wirelesstransmission



There are a number of other pervasive sensornetworks that generate valuable information withoutraising concerns over individual privacy, generallybecause the information that is currently collected isanonymous, and the value is in the aggregateinformation. The best example is traffic information,where the aggregate information from a private networkof roadside sensors is a platform for a portfolio of travelservices [26].

The question is whether these will remain asseparate and disconnected application areas, orwhether they can provide a platform for widerdevelopments. Will the vision of intelligent spaces onlydrive the creation of a few valuable ‘stove-pipe’applications, or it will it evolve into a pervasive,heterogeneous infrastructure, supporting a rich set ofwealth-creating applications?

One potential evolution path can be illustrated by aspecific example — traffic information. As well asaggregate traffic information, we also have thecapability to monitor or track individual vehicles,through a number of technologies. There is a system toenforce congestion charging in London; and Europeangovernments will soon be introducing systems toenforce lorry road usage charging (LRUC) [27]. Each ofthese is a ‘stove-pipe’ solution, introduced and justifiedby a specific revenue stream, but each can also create agreat deal of information that, in aggregate, or withappropriate privacy controls, could be a platform for arich set of travel-related services. Taking LRUC as anexample, a system could be introduced simply as a taxrevenue collection system. On the other hand, if it wereimplemented as an open information system, so thatthe collected information could be used by third parties(with appropriate controls and revenue sharing) tocreate added value travel services, it is likely to have amuch bigger impact on road network efficiency and theUK economy.

We believe that this is a good example of a way inwhich intelligent spaces and services can be created.Each time that a local or national government orauthority introduces an ICT system, especially one witha strong pervasive component, it is often an opportunityto create an open information system, and a serviceplatform for added value, and this could be encouragedthrough appropriate government policy [28].

This discussion suggests the evolution path, orroadmap that iSpace technology could follow:

• domain-specific solutions — application of thetechnology in a number of valuable applications(supply chain, traffic management, leisure, etc),and proprietary or standards-defined systems,

• open systems — selective opening of interfaces insome applications, to allow third parties to create aricher set of services (an explosion of competingarchitectures and interface definitions),

• pervasive and heterogeneous — on the one hand,competition and standardisation simplify the land-scape, while on the other hand, there is a profusionof devices/appliances/services/applications/markets;iThings need to become much smarter and moreadaptive with major issues of complexity being trustand dependability.

5. Research challenges

5.1 Current research issuesA good view of the research focused on the currentgeneration of ‘stove-pipe’ solutions can be seen in theDTI-supported ‘Next Wave Markets and Technologies’programme [29]. In this programme, there are anumber of research centres, each focused on onespecific ‘stove-pipe’ application area. Clearly, there areresearch challenges in each area associated with the‘where and how’ of delivering value.

There are also some specific issues that are quitecommon across most centres:

• sensing and collecting meaningful data on ‘human’activities,

• model building for real-world activity,

• data analysis,

• application of software agent technology,

• middleware,

• appropriate unintrusive interfaces,

• security, privacy and trust,

• human factors and social impact,

• low-power nodes,

• dynamic communications networks,

• development of complex market nets.

This is all work that is still in progress, but the sensethat seems to be emerging is that there are no majortechnology ‘show stoppers’ to realising the iSpacesvision, at least as disconnected ‘stove-pipe’ solutions ina number of application areas. Of course, there aremany areas where developments and improvements inhardware and software technology would have a majorimpact on utility, usability and value.



5.2 Research issues for pervasive deployment

On the other hand, there are many research issues thatneed to be addressed before we could contemplate theimplementation of a pervasive, heterogeneous andopen ICT system of any complexity or scale. There aremajor challenges in all of the components of the system,and also in the overall system architecture andstructure. Some of the major issues are discussed inmore detail below.

5.2.1 Architectures and interfacesA world of pervasive ICT is a world of billions ofconnected devices, interacting in dynamic and yet-to-be-defined ways, with each other and with the physicalworld. We are only now at the prototype stage for theimplementation of individual ‘stove-pipe’ applications.At some stage on the roadmap, as we move to a moreopen system model, the issues of interworking and openinterfaces will need to be considered. There are someissues that are likely to go beyond the scope of currentapproaches, for example in Web Services. An examplewould be the limited computational ability of someiThings [30].

5.2.2 Complexity and scalePervasive systems will need to cope with newdimensions of scale, complexity, heterogeneity anddynamics, and be driven by the combinations andpermutations of software and assets being integratedfor each specific implementation (including for one-shotusage, hence on-demand software creation).

It is anticipated that increasing demand forpersonalised/contextualised service offerings will alsolead to the need for much more dynamic systemfunctionality. From a user’s perspective this will requirenew system solutions that are able to ‘hide’ all thecomplexity and dynamics, but are still capable ofresponding ‘on demand’. In principle, the OpenServices Gateway Initiative (OSGi) is addressing aspectsof this problem but the solutions may prove to be toostatic and specialised for an environment where everyuser, in their context/time/space could potentially havea unique range of dynamic profiles.

There are a number of interesting developmentsbased on nature-inspired techniques [31, 32] whichdemonstrate greater robustness against heterogeneityand dynamics, including errors, faults and theconsequences of malicious behaviour. Self-organisingsystems can acquire a variety of valuable properties,which will facilitate the establishment of individualiSpaces over periods of time and varieties of usage, andreduce the impact of scale.

5.2.3 Communications systemsIt is envisaged that iSpaces will be interconnected by avery diverse range of communications technologies,usually provided by many different suppliers andevolving over lengthy timelines. Thus there will be alarge number of systems and protocols, and differentcommunications instances could use widely varyingstacks of actual systems or protocols with the typedriven by geography, context, application and time. Inaddition, the communications load itself is likely to havetraffic patterns and traffic statistics very different fromwhat present-day systems are designed for, and willcontinue to change as the popularity of dominantapplications evolves. There will be an increase in thenumber of tiny packets of information used for datagathering from elementary sensors (door open, roomtemp, water level, pressure sensors, etc) and anincrease in various types of video monitoring datastreams and data streams for complex human-centricmodelling. Thus the sheer scale, complexity,heterogeneity and dynamics of future demands onnetworks will stress current technology. Briscoe [20]points out that the Internet architecture took the moreobvious aspects into account when it was established toprovide ‘IP over everything’. He analyses the issuesraised by the needs of sensor networks and finds anumber of underlying issues in the areas of naming andaddressing, routing, traffic profiles and security whichneed further research.

5.2.4 Human interfacesWe need major advances to realise the true vision ofcomputational understanding, and in all humanmodalities. Although current software capabilities canprovide very exciting functionality to iSpaces, there isthe desire for much greater capability, to increase theaccuracy of a space’s response to inputs, improve theusability and reduce any interface demands on humans.

Advances are needed not just in text, speech andvision, but also for other sensory modalities. There isalso the need for some degree of synthesis in eachmodality. The need is for invisible interfaces whereverpossible, i.e. any system interactions are either totallyunobtrusive or easily visible and intuitive. However,although this is an important and desirable ‘wish list’,current capabilities are not yet sufficient to initiate theroadmap to the full.

Although there have been useful advances incommunicating using the other human senses,especially the tactile sense, they are still very under-researched, and could significantly improve the sense ofpresence. This is especially so for the large proportion ofthe population who suffer from various sensoryimpairments. Advances in the iSpace technology should



be capable of improving accessibility in quite dramaticways.

5.2.5 Security, privacy and trustTraditional security systems rely upon physical security,user authentication and access control for theirprotection but iSpaces are dynamic aggregations oflarge numbers of elementary transducers with verylimited computational power, together with morepowerful embedded or explicit processors. Many nodeswill be in physically insecure places, making themvulnerable to assault. The information gathered willoften be trivial on its own, but could become personallysensitive or commercially valuable when correlated withother distributed information sources. The logical andgeographically distributed nature, combined with theheterogeneity of systems and component types makesit unfeasible to guarantee security. However, appli-cations will generate a widely diverse range ofrequirements for security, and satisfying them needsongoing research focus. Briscoe [20] discusses severalaspects including verifiable location, tamper resistanceof hardware with limited computational power, and keymanagement for cryptography schemes, and describessome solutions.

Trust needs assurances about the content of data,the reliability of the source and the purpose for whichinformation is used. Trust is needed between individualsand organisations who want to co-operate for anypurpose. It has been defined as ‘... a measure ofwillingness of a responder to satisfy an inquiry of arequestor for an action that may place all involvedparties at risk of harm ...’. Trust is threatened by loss ofprivacy and lack of integrity. There is an additionalimpact if the association of devices and information isundermined. The heterogeneity, distributed nature anddynamics in iSpaces generate considerable need for thedevelopment of a new understanding of trust and newflexible techniques to enable it. Seleznyov et al [33]discuss these issues in some detail, and present aconceptual description of a distributed access controlsystem aimed at automation of a trust establishmentprocess.

Privacy (as relating to information) has been definedas ‘... the claims of individuals, groups or institutions todetermine for themselves when, how and to what extentinformation about them is communicated to the others’[34]. Invasions of privacy can be against (or by)individuals or corporations, e.g. criminal activity,industrial espionage. Currently iSpaces are onlydesigned to protect privacy, e.g. by notifying users ofthe intent to gather information, offering them choiceto decline or giving them access to informationgathered, if the designers have had the forethought tobuild it into the system. Open systems will need to

develop new techniques, individually or collectively, tocomply with something like the principles of fairinformation practice along the lines of the iThingsequivalent of the EU Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC. The many privacy issues raised by pervasivenetworks are discussed in detail by Soppera andBurbridge [30].

5.2.6 Accessibility A utopian perception of iSpace technology is that itcould satisfy the needs of everyone, regardless of abilityor inability. Although this is false, the technology, ifdeveloped in a user-centric manner with comprehensivecontextualisation capabilities, will indeed extend theaccessibility to a much broader range of users than anyexisting technologies to date. The concept is that of‘the disappearing computer’, i.e. where thecomputational demands of the system are utterly non-intrusive and interfaces are so intuitive they are thereand real but unperceived. In practice, this means thesystem and its interfaces require passive interactionswith humans or interactions using our evolved, notlearned, capabilities, e.g. vision, sound. It is possiblethat extensive anthropomorphisation of entities, e.g. byuse of software agents to represent physical objects andinformation, will produce the desired effect. However,this assumes willingness of humans to adapt and acceptthe changes. Even without such willingness, lower levelsof iSpace complexity will still open the benefits to amuch wider range of people.

6. ConclusionsOur vision of intelligent spaces is more than theevolution of many, disparate stove-piped solutions. It isseen as an integration of many subsystems having thecapabilities to gather information unobtrusively and toinfer and fulfill the contextually specific needs ofhumans. Cost reductions and performanceenhancements in the hardware and the softwaresuggest this could be a viable vision. The applicationopportunities are huge, and cover virtually every area ofhuman endeavour. However, the benefits are generallyseen as spread across many aspects, and finding killerapplications in such a dilute benefit-space will needimagination. The complexity of the systems will alsoraise the barriers to market entry, because the systemsfrequently need a complex and extensive system roll-outbefore the benefits materialise. Fortunately there aresome applications where initial benefits can accruegradually, leading to an iSpace evolution roadmapwhich will provide growth opportunities in time.

The technology issues are perceived as solvable. Themarket and business issues will be demanding, but thetechnology is already being introduced in pilotdeployments. It can be of huge benefit to a wide rangeof people, and can offer very significant improvements



in the quality of life of many, including those with arestricted quality of life through age, infirmity ordisability. However, like most technologies, it can beabused, and issues of privacy, confidentiality, trust andreliability will need debating, so that the right controlsand freedoms are developed.

The time is now right to develop practical and usefuliSpaces and apply them where the benefits outweighthe disadvantages. These are likely to range frominitially simple, but large-scale, implementations, suchas RFID-based systems for supply chain/retailimprovements to localised systems for aiding andautomating some aspects of care provision, where thepersonal interactions are much more computationallycomplex and the privacy issues can be controlled.

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19 Pister K — http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu./~pister/SmartDust/

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. .

Steve Wright joined BT in 2003, havingspent most of his professional life inacademic and industrial research acrossthe communications and IT sector. He hasa degree in Electrical Sciences from theUniversity of Cambridge and a PhD fromUniversity College, London.

Until his appointment at BT Exact, heworked at HP laboratories in Bristol wherehe managed research in passivecomputing, content deleivery, mobility,Internet technology and economics. Hewas also founding Director of the HP

Internet Research Institute, an open research collaboration with theSwedish Institute of Computer Science.

He has published many papers, filed several patents and wasresponsible for the research that has led to a number of new products,ranging in scale from components (HP products based on the IRDA and!EEEE802.3 standards), through LAN hubs and switches (HPAdvancestack and HP Anylan), up to voice and media processingsystems (HP OpenCall Media Platform).

Alan Steventon holds BSc, MTech and PhDdegrees and is Director of the researchconsultancy Judal Associates Ltd.

During 32 years with BT he has managedBT’s long-term research programme whichinitiated the research work of this specialissue and has held several managementroles with responsibilities for large teamsresearching intelligent systems, complexsystems and devices and materials forfibre-optics. The excellence of these teamshas been confirmed by a high publicationand patenting success rate and many

national and international awards.

He was instrumental in planning and establishing a Queen’s Awardwinning optoelectronic devices factory.

He has published widely and been an advisor to various EU, UK, Dutchand Australian research programmes and to a number of UK Universitydepartments.

intelligent spaces — the vision, the opportunities and the barriers

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