Ambient Intelligence Perspectives contains selected papers from the first international Ambient Intelligence Forum AmIF 2008 in Hradec Kraacute;loveacute;, Czech Republic. The forum is intended as the beginning of a series of rather broadly oriented discussion opportunities for discussing interdisciplinary, if not transdisciplinary aspects of rapidly evolving areas of Ambient Intelligence. Its aims were to review and discuss recent advances and promising research trends in AmI technology, intelligent environments, methods, middleware development, as well as applications in areas such as healthcare, product lifecycle and transport services. The intention to provide an opportunity of a very broad interaction among a wide rank of A01s coming from different surroundings means a great enrichment to all participants and gives ground to the success of the conference. Finally it led towards an interesting choice of three invited and twenty-five contributed papers, which are published in this book. All papers were carefully reviewed by the international program committee. Participants from twelve countries contributed to the scientific program and established a fruitful discussion atmosphere.

Ambient intelligence (AI) refers to a developing technology that will increasingly make our everyday environment sensitive and responsive to our presence. The AI vision requires technology invisibly embedded in our everyday surroundings, present whenever we need it that will lead to the seamless integration of lighting, sounds, vision, domestic appliances, and personal healthcare products to enhance our living experience. Written for the non-specialist seeking an authoritative but accessible overview of this interdisciplinary field, True Visions explains how the devices making up the AI world will operate collectively using information and intelligence hidden in the wireless network connecting them. Expert contributions address key AI components such as smart materials and textiles, system architecture, mobile computing, broadband communication, and underlying issues of human-environment interactions. It seeks to unify the perspectives of scientists from diverse backgrounds ranging from the physics of materials to the aesthetics of industrial design as it describes the emergence of ambient intelligence, one of today’s most compelling areas of innovation.

The concept of an intelligent agent - a computational system capable of performing certain tasks autonomously - derived from the growing potential of digital computers in the mid 20th century and had been widely adopted by the early 1990s. Partly in parallel with this concept, the perspective of ambient intelligence (AmI) emerged in the late 1990s. Agent technology and AmI have many similarities, and the main purpose of this book is to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art of the scientific area that integrates these two. The book addresses a wide variety of topics related to agents and AmI, including theoretical, practical, design, implementation, ethical and philosophical issues. The 12 chapters are arranged in four sections. The first consists of three chapters discussing ethical and philosophical issues; the second part explores various approaches that can be used to develop agent-based AmI Systems; the third part contains three chapters that share the goal to endow AmI systems with useful properties like intelligence and adaptivity and the last section presents concrete applications of agent-based AmI systems. This book provides an insight into recent achievements and future challenges at the intersection of agent technology and ambient intelligence and will assist the development of more intelligent, flexible, effective and user-friendly systems as well as posing critical questions about the future of the role of agents within the AmI perspective.

Contains selected papers from the second international Ambient Intelligence Forum - AmIF 2009, held in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. This book aims to point to a multifaceted nature of ambient intelligence. It presents ambient intelligence in five different perspectives.

Ambient Intelligence Perspectives contains selected papers from the first international ambient Intelligence Forum - AmIF 2008 in Hradec Králové, Czech Republic. The forum is intended as the beginning of a series of rather broadly oriented discussion opportunities for discussing interdisciplinary, if not transdisciplinary aspects of rapidly evolving areas of Ambient Intelligence. Its aims were to review and discuss recent advances and promising research trends in AmI technology, intelligent environments, ethods, middleware development, as well as applications in areas such as healthcare, product lifecycle and transport services. The intention to provide an opportunity of a very broad interaction among a wide rank of authors coming from different surroundigs means a great enrichment to all participants and gives ground to the success of the conference. Finally it led towards an interesting choice of three invited and twenty-five contributed papers, which are published in this book. All papers were carefull reviewed by the international program committee. Participants from twelve countries contributed to the scientific program and established a fruitful discussion atmosphere.

The area of smart homes is fast developing as an emergent area which attracts the synergy of several areas of science. This volume offers a collection of contributions addressing how artificial intelligence (AI), one of the core areas of computer science, can bring the growing area of smart homes to a higher level of functionality where homes can truly realize the long standing dream of proactively helping their inhabitants in an intelligent way. After an introductory section to describe a smart home scenario and to provide some basic terminology, the following 9 sections turn special attention to a particular exemplar application scenario (provision of healthcare and safety related services to increase the quality of life) exploring the application of specific areas of AI to this scenario.