A domestic application of intelligent social computing: The sands project

Abstract

This paper introduces principal ideas of new ways to mediate the interaction between users and their domestic environment, namely the set of household appliances owned by the user. These ideas are being developed in the framework of the Social and Smart (SandS) project, which elaborates on the idea of a social network of home appliance users that exchange information and insights about the use of their appliances. This interaction constitutes the conscious social computing layer of the system. The system has a subconscious computing layer consisting of a networked intelligence that strives to provide innovative solutions to user problems, so that the system goes beyond being a recollection of appliance recipes. This paper discusses the structure of the system, as well as some data representation issues that may be instrumental to its development, as part of the development work leading to the final implementation of the project ideas.