Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Informationstechnik FIT

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 11
  • Publication
    An extended pattern language approach for UbiComp application design
    ( 2011)
    Reiners, R.
    The idea of Ubiquitous Computing was first formalized and described by Mark Weiser in the early 90's. Since then, it has been followed by many research groups and extended in many ways. There are many ideas, concepts, prototypes and products implementing ubiquitous computing scenarios. However, the manifold of approaches also brings along a large variety of denominations for eventually similar concepts. Our work seeks for the creation of a dynamic pattern language gathering design knowledge for ubiquitous computing applications and the underlying concepts. The intention is to support researchers and application designers in the domain to avoid the repetition of design errors and provide design knowledge about successful approaches.
  • Publication
    Utilizing cell phones for bystander intervention during emergencies
    ( 2011)
    Al-Akkad, A.
    ;
    Reiners, R.
    ;
    Zimmermann, A.
    Due to the ubiquity and ever-increasing capabilities of cell phones, they have been exploited for mobile data collection in diverse domains [1]. In this position paper, we hypothesize that bystanders can contribute to the handling of emergencies by means of usage of smart phones. To examine our hypothesis, we conducted at first 24 interviews, as described in [2]. Time staggered we also interviewed two persons who experienced the crisis at a stampede [3] at the Love Parade music festival in Germany in the year of 2010. Based on the results of both studies, we draw conclusions for the design of a potential mobile emergency app being dedicated for bystanders.
  • Publication
    Towards a common pattern language for ubicomp application design
    ( 2010)
    Reiners, R.
    The idea of Ubiquitous Computing was first formalized and described by Mark Weiser in the early 90's. Since then, it has been followed by many research groups and extended in many ways. There are many ideas, concepts, prototypes and products implementing ubiquitous computing scenarios. However, the manifold of approaches also brings along a large variety of denominations for eventually similar concepts. Our work seeks for the creation of a dynamic pattern language gathering design knowledge for ubiquitous computing applications and the underlying concepts. The intention is to support researchers and application designers in the domain to avoid the repetition of design errors and provide design knowledge about successful approaches. In order to get closer to that aim, our first step is to present a classification scheme applicable to existing and future approaches that is needed in order to collect, structure and compare application design approaches as design patterns.
  • Publication
    The energy aware smart home
    ( 2010)
    Jahn, M.
    ;
    Jentsch, M.
    ;
    Prause, C.R.
    ;
    Pramudianto, F.
    ;
    Al-Akkad, A.
    ;
    Reiners, R.
    In this paper, we present a novel smart home system integrating energy efficiency features. The smart home application is built on top of Hydra, a middleware framework that facilitates the intelligent communication of heterogeneous embedded devices through an overlay P2P network. We interconnect common devices available in private households and integrate wireless power metering plugs to gain access to energy consumption data. These data are used for monitoring and analyzing consumed energy on device level in near real-time. Further, transparent information about the energy usage can be used to efficiently program and control home appliances depending on various factors, e.g. the electricity price. Making more and more data available to end-users, brings with it further challenges in the area of user interfaces. Hence, we complete the smart home system by intuitive user interfaces presenting energy consumption data in meaningful contexts and allowing end users to interact with their environment. We argue, that the combination of both, a technically sophisticated smart home application and at the same time transparent, intuitive user interfaces showing information regarding the energy usage, e.g. energy price, energy source, standby consumption etc., has the potential to bring the vision of the energy efficient smart home within reach.
  • Publication
    Empirical study of tool support in highly distributed research projects
    ( 2010)
    Prause, C.
    ;
    Reiners, R.
    ;
    Dencheva, S.
  • Publication
    Incentives for maintaining high-quality source code
    ( 2010)
    Prause, C.
    ;
    Reiners, R.
    ;
    Dencheva, S.
    ;
    Zimmermann, A.
    Source code is a medium of communication between human developers. Understandability is the key to maintainable and reusable code. Yet code developed collaboratively with weak ownership is a common property resource that su ers from di usion of responsibility, and hence gradual deterioration. Such misbehavior is usually dealt with with strict usage regulations, e.g. coding rules enforced by reviews. Instead, we take for granted a way to privatize code - e.g. based on authorship information obtained from Subversion - and discuss di fferent ways to reward well-mannered coding, while focussing on friendly self-organization and low coercive power in scienti c environments.
  • Publication
    Automizing home environments and supervising patients at home with the hydra middleware
    ( 2009)
    Reiners, R.
    ;
    Zimmermann, A.
    ;
    Jentzsch, A.
    ;
    Zhang, J.
    In the Hydra Middleware project context awareness, among many other aspects plays an important role. Context is not only defined by the user's presence but also by identifying available devices and services that are offered by the environment or the devices themselves. Inside the architecture, special components handle contextual information by also separating between core-functionality and the possibility to extend the built-in concept by new components providing context information. This work presents a first step towards ubiquitous and context aware applications in the healthcare and home automation sector. In the scope of the Hydra Middleware project, applications taken from different domains are derived from the current project's state and knowledge. The inclusion of different application domains supports the development of a domain-independent middleware and a wide spectrum of interests for application developers.
  • Publication
    Prototyping an extended magic lens interface for discovering sart objects in a ubiquitous environment
    ( 2009)
    Reiners, R.
    ;
    Wibowo, V.
    In the vision of Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing, smart environments play an important role. Within these environments, everyday objects are augmented with new functionalities and services. In the scope of this vision, once these functionalities and services are integrated into real world objects, the question arises on how they can be discovered and consumed? So, how is the knowledge about the objects' smartness made accessible to users again? This work presents a magic lens approach, called UbiLens that supports users in a smart environment to scan for functions and services. The contribution of this work is the presentation of a conceptual evaluation of different interaction features, which was performed with a mixture of a physical handheld device and a paper prototype.
  • Publication
    Discovery and interaction in smart environments
    ( 2009)
    Reiners, R.
    ;
    Jetsch, M.