Ambient Intelligence

Excerpt

The concept ambient intelligence was first introduced more than ten years ago by the EU Information Society Technologies Advisory Group (ISTAG 1999). The result was a visionary description of a technological development in which information and communication systems are embedded in the user environment and enable numerous ways of individual support from the background. Until now, the term has played a secondary role in the German-speaking research community of business and information systems engineering (BISE). Instead, synonymous terms like pervasive computing or ubiquitous computing have been used (cf. e.g. Mattern 2001). The journal it – Information Technology was the first to dedicate an exclusive issue to the topic in a special issue (n.a. 2008). Moreover, some papers in the context of sub conferences as part of the Multi-Conference on Information Systems (MKWI) dealt with and identified ambient intelligence. Furthermore, the use of the concept, which has become known as “Ambient Assisted Living (AAL)”, is presently on the increase. One possible explanation for the more frequent use is the link with various AAL-related initiatives and their respective funding programs at both the federal and the EU level. …