Networked Surfaces are surfaces which provide networking to specially augmented objects when these objects are physically placed on top of the surface. When an object (e.g. a notebook computer) connects, a handshaking protocol assigns functions such as data or power transmission to the various conducting paths that are established.

What are the consequences of mobility for augmented reality ? This brief paper explores some of the issues that I believe will be raised by the development and future commonplace adoption of mobile, wearable, augmented reality systems. These include: social influences on tracking accuracy, the importance of appearance and comfort, an increase in collaborative applications, integration with other devices, and implications for personal privacy. 1. Introduction Over the past decade, the reality of mobile computing has begun to embrace the potential of wearable computing. In the process, several researchers have attempted to clarify what distinguishes wearable computing from mobile computing. Rhodes [10] suggests five criteria for wearable systems: portable while operational, needing minimal manual input, sensitive to the user's surrounding environment, always on, and able to attract the user's attention even when not actively in use. Mann [8] cites three desirable properties for wearabl...

This thesis contributes a new system in support of large scale people-centric sensing applications. Over the last decade, wireless sensor networking has developed into ar-guably the most active area in networking research. The state of the art largely follows an application-specific philosophy, where modest numbers of static wirelessly-connected sensor nodes are placed in the target environment in support of a single application. In a properly engineered network, sensor nodes are well-equipped and well-positioned to best provide the connectivity and sensing required by the application. Such networks are ill-suited, however, to the demands of a new class of applications focused on providing sensor information about people, their daily lives, and their environments. These people-centric applications require the ability to both sample very detailed information on the individual scale, and to provide a view of the urban landscape- a very large scale challenge. A new approach is required. Therefore, we propose the novel MetroSense architecture in support of people-centric sensing. While incorporating static infrastructure elements, to get large scale sensing cover-age the architecture primarily makes use of devices with embedded sensors, such as mobile

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it describes might be incorporated into prototypes built by IBM Research to explore technical questions and might be used in a limited number of pilot studies. Nothing in this report implies an intention to release anything described or alluded to more broadly than is needed for such studies or to base future product offerings on it. In keeping with the exploratory nature of what is described, it and the current documentation might be made available to a limited number of business or joint study partners on an as-is basis, without implied or express warranty of any kind. IBM Research reserves the right to change this technology and its defined interfaces at any time. Limited Distribution Notice This report may be submitted for publication outside of IBM and will probably be copyrighted if accepted. It has been issued as a Research Report for early dissemination of its contents. In view of the transfer of copyright to the outside publisher, its distribution outside of IBM prior to publication should be limited to peer communications and specific requests. After outside publication, requests should be filled only by reprints or legally obtained copies of the article (e.g., with payment of royalties).

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iBand is a technology-enhanced bracelet that can store, display, and exchange information about you and your relationships. This exchange occurs during a common user-initiated one-to-one gestural interaction between two people: a handshake. iBand aims to leverage the familiar nature of the handshake, coupled with the qualities of jewelry to act as tangible keepsakes and reminders of relationships, to explore potential applications at the intersection of social networking and ubiquitous computing.

Power constraints play a key role in designing Human Area Networks (HANs) for biomonitoring. To alleviate the power constraints, we advocate a design that uses an asynchronous time encoding mechanisms for representing biomonitoring information and the skin surface as the communication channel. Time encoding does not require a clock while allows perfect signal recovery; the communication channel is operated below 1 MHz. We (i) review the fundamental theory behind time encoding and signal recovery, (ii) describe the implementation of a HAN prototype and (iii) present research data obtained from our experimental platform. We demonstrate that the fidelity of the proposed signal representation and transmission scheme is well above the biomedical monitoring requirements even in the case of additive channel-noise and neighboring channel interference. Consequently, the traditional HAN architecture consisting of clocked A/D converters feeding into digital RF channels can be replaced with a less power demanding time encoding/decoding pair that uses the skin surface as a communications channel.

Touch sensing and computer vision have made humancomputer interaction possible in environments where keyboards, mice, or other handheld implements are not available or desirable. However, the high cost of instrumenting environments limits the ubiquity of these technologies, particularly in home scenarios where cost constraints dominate installation decisions. Fortunately, home environments frequently offer a signal that is unique to locations and objects within the home: electromagnetic noise. In this work, we use the body as a receiving antenna and leverage this noise for gestural interaction. We demonstrate that it is possible to robustly recognize touched locations on an uninstrumented home wall using no specialized sensors. We conduct a series of experiments to explore the capabilities that this new sensing modality may offer. Specifically, we show robust classification of gestures such as the position of discrete touches around light switches, the particular light switch being touched, which appliances are touched, differentiation between hands, as well as continuous proximity of hand to the switch, among others. We close by discussing opportunities, limitations, and future work. Author Keywords Input, touch interaction, surface interaction, electrical noise

Networked Surfaces are surfaces such as desks which provide network connectivity to specially augmented devices, for example handheld computers. When the devices are physically placed on top of the surface, they can connect to different kinds of services – mainly, but not exclusively to send and receive data. This paper discusses challenges in implementing Networked Surfaces, paying particular attention to data flow issues, focusing on how the various software and hardware entities comprising the Surface interact to transport data to and from objects.