Last month we visited the research facilties of Philips HomeLab to discuss Ambient Experiences. A report of this visit: In the near future our homes will have a distributed network of intelligent devices that provides us with information, communication, and entertainment. Furthermore, these systems will adapt themselves to the user and even anticipate on user needs. These consumer systems will differ substantially from contemporary equipment through their appearance in peoples environments, and through the way users interact with them. Ambient Intelligence is the term that Philips uses to denote this new paradigm for in-home computing and entertainment. Salient features of these new experiences are ubiquitous computing, natural interaction, and intelligence.

Philips has a vision. We believe that, in the year 2020, people will relate to electronics in more natural and comfortable ways as we do now. We believe that current inventions, by Philips and others, will make electronics ’smart’. Technological breakthroughs will also allow us to integrate ’smart electronics’ into more friendly environments. This is our vision of ‘Ambient Intelligence’: people living easily in digital environments in which the electronics are sensitive to people’s needs, personalized to their requirements, anticipatory of their behavior and responsive to their presence.

A Vision

 During the past decade, computer scientists have developed the notion of ubiquitous computing to situate a world in which it would be possible to have access to any source of information at any place at any point in time by any person. Such a world can be conceived by a huge distributed network consisting of thousands of interconnected embedded systems that surround the user and satisfy his needs for information, communication, navigation, and entertainment. This concept can be viewed as a first approach to the development of third generation computing systems, where the first and second generations are given by the main frame and the personal computer, respectively. The ongoing distribution of storage and processing may move the computer as a standalone system into the background, yet maintaining its functionality as a computing device. This development provides the consumer electronics industry with a challenging opportunity by replacing the disappearing computer with a new user experience through the addition of ambience intelligence.

A New Paradigm

Ambient intelligence refers to the presence of a digital environment that is sensitive, adaptive, and responsive to the presence of people. Within a home environment, ambient intelligence will improve the quality of life of people by creating the desired atmosphere and functionality via intelligent, personalized inter-connected systems and services. Ambient intelligence can be characterized by the following basic elements: ubiquity, transparency, and intelligence. Ubiquity refers to a situation in which we are surrounded by a multitude of interconnected embedded systems. Transparency indicates that the surrounding systems are invisible and moved into the background of our surroundings. Intelligence refers to the fact that the digital surroundings exhibit specific forms of intelligence, i.e., it should be able to recognize the people that live in it, adapt themselves to them, learn from their behavior, and possibly show emotion. Drivers The developments in computer technology follow the laws issued by Moore, who states that the integration density of systems on silicon doubles every eighteen months. This law seems to hold a self-fulfilling prophecy because the computer industry follows this trend for already two decades.

Moreover, other characteristic quantities of information processing systems, such as communication bandwidth, and storage capacity seem to follow similar rules. The Internet can be viewed as one of the first truly worldwide ubiquitous information systems realized by mankind. By now, 2.5% of the world population is online, and in western countries the subscription rate is close to 10%. Furthermore, the network quickly develops and the variety of online services is fascinating. Furthermore, there is a strong economical driver given by the total yearly turnover in the market of electronic systems. In 1999 this figure exceeds 3000 billion US dollars, with a yearly expected growth of more than 10% for the forthcoming decade. This implies an enormous market volume for new electronics products of which ambient intelligent systems may take a substantial share. Finally, and most importantly, there is a social driver given by the need of human beings to feel more comfortable and at ease in the quickly developing technocratic world than they use to feel. Ambient intelligence can increase the quality time for people through novel services, and entertainment providing an enhanced user experience.

Ubiquitous computing

The ability to implement ‘ubiquitous computing’, a situation where processing power is embedded into everything, is certain to arrive within the next ten to fifteen years. When it does, Philips will be able to fully realize its vision of Ambient Intelligence, using technology that is embedded into the fabric of our surroundings to create an environment that is sensitive and responsive to our presence and sympathetic to our needs. In the meantime, Philips Research is already exploiting key characteristics of Ambient Intelligence to develop product concepts that will allow us to experience some of the benefits much sooner than you may think. These can be typified by the following characteristics:
+Context Awareness
+Personalized
+Immersive
+Adaptive

Click here for some information on Philips Research facilities: HomeLab or Homelab:

Some examples of new ambient experiences:
The new TV experience,
The intelligent mirror
E-toys like ICat (movie)
When your room becomes your browser with Physical Markup Language (PML)

Related literature (recommended by Philips HomeLab) is added to our booklist.

Philips HomeLab tour photo-album (By Hans Mestrum)