Information, society and technology

Abstract

Ambient Intelligence is fundamentally a European concept for a future information society where intelligent interfaces enable people and devices to interact with each other and with the environment in real time and pro-actively. Technology operates in the background while computing capabilities are everywhere, connected and always available. This intelligent environment is aware of the specific characteristics of human presence and preferences, takes care of explicit and implicit needs and is capable of responding intelligently to spoken or gestured indications of desire. It even engages in intelligent dialogue. Central to the AmI concept is "human-centred computing", "user-friendliness", user empowerment and the support of human interaction (ISTAG 2001; Aarts et al. 2002). Ambient devices and services for work, health, comfort and sanity will need to function in a seamless, unobtrusive and often invisible way. Ambient Intelligence flags the idea of machines that become really active, that think for us but only-and this is crucial-when people want it and only on their conditions. That is why the abbreviation of Ambient Intelligence as AmI is used-it should signal a move beyond concepts such as user-friendliness into a servitude to people in a way users can never realise on their own. Ambient Intelligence is therefore a human-centric approach to next generation Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and by being so responds to some fundamental European values. The humanistic dimension of technology is becoming an increasingly important driver in the information society. This clarifies to a certain extent why a concept that only emerged in mainstream technology discourses at the end of last century (ISTAG 1999)-and that was built upon the notion of ubiquitous computing as coined by Weiser (1991), a computer scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox Parc)-is already significantly widespread. It might explain why the number of hits that are generated by Google on the term "Ambient Intelligence" is significant: 440,000 hits in April 2006 (against 38,500 in November 2004). The words Ambient Intelligence without quotes almost returned 500,000 links (against > 200, 000 in November 2004). © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.