Pervasive technologies and assistive environments: social impact, financial, government and privacy issues

Excerpt

Today, we live the era of pervasive and mobile computing, where the trend in modern ICT-based applications is towards achieving two specific goals: the availability of software applications and information anywhere and anytime and the invisibility of computing [1]. Applications and interfaces that will be able to automatically process data provided by devices and sensors, exchange knowledge and make intelligent decisions in a given context, are strongly desirable. Natural user interactions with such applications are based on autonomy, avoiding the need for the user to control every action, and adaptivity so that they are contextualized and personalized, delivering the right information and decision at the right moment [2, 3]. The home as the main people’s living environment is particularly important, taken into account the world’s ageing population and the fact that elder and disabled people rely more on technology in our days [4]. Providing assistance at home through pervasive sensor networks and other technologies remains a big challenge, because of the heterogeneity of devices, network systems and health policies [5‐9]. Extending human support to the outdoors, in an urban or other setting, presents even bigger challenges, as the outside of the home environment is not predetermined, and cannot be controlled or easily monitored [10, 11]. …