The availability of location information has become a key factor in today's communications systems allowing location based services. In outdoor scenarios, the mobile terminal position is obtained with high accuracy thanks to the global positioning system (GPS) or to the standalone cellular systems. However, the main problem of GPS and cellular systems resides in the indoor environment and in scenarios with deep shadowing effects where the satellite or cellular signals are broken. In this paper, we survey different technologies and methodologies for indoor and outdoor localization with an emphasis on indoor methodologies and concepts. Additionally, we discuss in this review different localization-based applications, where the location information is critical to estimate. Finally, a comprehensive discussion of the challenges in terms of accuracy, cost, complexity, security, scalability, etc. is given. The aim of this survey is to provide a comprehensive overview of existing efforts as well as auspicious and anticipated dimensions for future work in indoor localization techniques and applications.

Recent Advances in Indoor Localization: A Survey on Theoretical Approaches and Applications

(1988). Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business. The Social Science Journal: Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 386-388.

Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business: By Neil Postman New York: Viking, 1985, Penguin, 1986, 180 pp., $15.95 (cloth), $6.95 (paper)

This book provides an in-depth description of event-based systems, covering topics ranging from local event matching and distributed event forwarding algorithms, through a practical discussion of software engineering issues raised by the event-based style, to state-of-the-art research in event-based systems like composite event detection and security. The authors offer a comprehensive overview, and show the power of event-based architectures in modern system design, encouraging professionals to exploit this technique in next generation large-scale distributed applications like information dissemination, network monitoring, enterprise application integration, or mobile systems.

/pdf/distributed-event-based-systems-33fttbtql7.pdf

Distributed event-based systems

In 1965 Ivan E. Sutherland envisioned the Ultimate Display, a room in which a computer can directly control the existence of matter.
This type of display would merge the digital and the physical world, dramatically changing how people interact with computers.
This thesis explores flat displays, deformable displays, flexible materials, static, and mobile projection displays in dynamic environments. 
%Dynamic environments are inherent to human behavior, but pose big problems to Human-Computer Interaction since computing devices rely on many assumptions of the interaction.
Two aspects of the dynamic environment are considered. One is mobile human nature -- a person moving through or inside an environment. The other is the change or movement of the environment itself.

The initial study consisted of a mixed reality application, based on recent motor learning research. It tested if a performer's attentional focus on markers external to the body improves the accuracy and duration of acquiring a motor skill, as compared with the performer focusing on their own body accompanied by verbal instructions. This experiment showed the need for displays that resemble physical reality. 


Deformable displays and Organic User Interfaces (OUIs) leverage shape, material, and the inherent properties of matter in order to create natural, intuitive forms of interaction. We suggested designing OUIs employing depth sensors as 3D input, deformable displays as 3D output, and identifying attributes that couple matter to human perception and motor skills. 

Flexible materials were explored by developing a soft gripper able to hold everyday objects of various shapes and sizes. It did not use complex hardware or control algorithms, but rather combined sheets of flexible plastic materials and a single servo motor.
The gripper showed how a simple design with a minimal control mechanism can solve a complex problem in a dynamic environment.
It serves as an example application for merging the digital and the physical through flexible materials, embodied computation, and actuation.

The next two experiments merge digital information with the physical dynamic environment by using mobile and static projectors.
The mobile projector experiment consisted of GPS navigation using a bike-mounted projector, displaying a map on the pavement in front of the bike. We found out that if compared with a bike-mounted smartphone, the mobile projector yields a lower cognitive load for the map navigation task. 
A dynamic space emerges from the navigation task requirements, and the projected display becomes a part of the physical environment. 

In the final experiment, a person interacts with a changing, growing environment, on which digital information is projected from above using a static projector. The interactive space consists of cardboard building blocks, the arrangement of which are limited by the area of projection. The user adds cardboard blocks to the cluster based upon feedback projected from above.
Concepts from artificial intelligence and architecture were applied for understanding the interaction between the environment, the user, the morphology, and the material of the physical building system.

https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/198101/198101.pdf

The Ultimate Display

This review presents the state of the art of the application of energy harvesting in commercial and residential buildings. Electromagnetic (optical and radio frequency), kinetic, thermal and airflow-based energy sources are identified as potential energy sources within buildings and the available energy is measured in a range of buildings. Suitable energy harvesters are discussed and the available and the potential harvested energy calculated. Calculations based on these measurements, and the technical specifications of state-of-the-art harvesters, show that typical harvested powers are: (1) indoor solar cell (active area of 9 cm2, volume of 2.88 cm3): ~300 µW from a light intensity of 1000 lx; (2) thermoelectric harvester (volume of 1.4 cm3): 6 mW from a thermal gradient of 25 °C; (3) periodic kinetic energy harvester (volume of 0.15 cm3): 2 µW from a vibration acceleration of 0.25 m s−2 at 45 Hz; (4) electromagnetic wave harvester (13 cm antenna length and conversion efficiency of 0.7): 1 µW with an RF source power of −25 dBm; and (5) airflow harvester (wind turbine blade of 6 cm diameter and generator efficiency of 0.41): 140 mW from an airflow of 8 m s−1. These results highlight the high potential of energy harvesting technology in buildings and the relative attractions of various harvester technologies. The harvested power could either be used to replace batteries or to prolong the life of rechargeable batteries for low-power (~1 mW) electronic devices.

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0957-0233/25/1/012002/pdf

Review of the application of energy harvesting in buildings

iBeacons are a new way to interact with hardware. An iBeacon is a Bluetooth Low Energy device that only sends a signal in a specific format. They are like a lighthouse that sends light signals to boats. This paper explains what an iBeacon is, how it works and how it can simplifiy your daily life, what restriction comes with iBeacon and how to improve this restriction., as well as, how to use Location-based Services to track items. E.g., every time you touchdown at an airport and wait for your suitcase at the luggage reclaim, you have no information when your luggage will arrive at the conveyor belt. With an iBeacon inside your suitcase, it is possible to track the luggage and to receive a push notification about it even before you can see it. This is just one possible solution to use them. Ibeacon can create a completely new shopping experience or make your home smarter. This paper demonstrates the luggage tracking use case and evaluates its possibilities and restrictions.

Location-Based Services with iBeacon Technology

Many people have difficulties getting their bearings when entering an unknown building. However, this problem can be solved by localisation and navigation on a mobile phone. This chapter presents a locating system which is based on recognising geomagnetic field disturbances and ambient light. A particle filter is applied to the locating problem. It is used to fuse together the data of both sensors and track the mobile phone. The prototypic implementation of locating takes place on an Android tablet. Different aspects of the particle filter are evaluated regarding their influence on the accuracy of locating. The tests took place in an office building. In the course of these tests an arithmetic mean locating error of 4 m was achieved.

Using the Magnetic Field for Indoor Localisation on a Mobile Phone

We present an approach that uses visual hand detection, tracking and gesture recognition to provide an interactive interface between the user and a multimedia application. We use the Viola–Jones cascade detector to locate the hand and then utilise the unscented Kalman filter and a pre-constructed hand model for efficient object tracking. We then use a semantic-probabilistic method to recognise hand gestures that provide a simple and user-friendly way for the user to interact with the application. We perform experimental testing of our tracking system, validate the gesture recognition approach and evaluate the proposed approach in an augmented reality application. Finally, we discuss several possible applications that can use our gesture recognition approach, including a virtual reality application, a smart home control system and an interface to interact with museum exhibits.

Gesture Recognition-Based Human–Computer Interaction Interface for Multimedia Applications

Home automation and building services systems are integrated in many homes and buildings to meet the needs of comfort, security and efficiency of the customers. On the other hand, mobile devices such as handheld devices and smart phones are providing location-independent access to the Internet and local networks. This paper describes the requirements to combine these two mediums to supervise home automation systems with smart phones. It presents the design and implementation of an iPhone application that allows the retrofitting of mobile devices into an existing KNX home automation system without the need of specific hardware or skilled technicians. An approach to use configuration files, which arise during the installation of KNX home automation systems, for the initial setup of the mobile application is discussed.

Supervision and Regulation of Home Automation Systems with Smartphones

Wireless systems being event-driven by reading passive RFID tags, detecting proximity of multiple active RFID tags, or dereferencing data coded in optical identification tags are often designed and implemented for its specific usage. This paper introduces a middleware application that decouples event detection, its forwarding to designated receivers, and action triggering at a consumer allowing multi-purpose usage for different applications in heterogeneous architectures e.g. identifying objects in the term Internet of Things.

Jurgen Sieck

Papers

Location-Based Services with iBeacon Technology

Using the Magnetic Field for Indoor Localisation on a Mobile Phone

Gesture Recognition-Based Human–Computer Interaction Interface for Multimedia Applications

Supervision and Regulation of Home Automation Systems with Smartphones

A distributed middleware for applications of the Internet of Things