Towards an Inclusive Future by Patrick RW Re - HTML preview

Chapter 7

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Appendix I. Scenarios for people

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Appendix I

Scenarios for people who are not able to see

1. Maria

The environment is assumed to be totally unknown to Maria.

Being a blind person, Maria has a foldable tactile presentation system. Even if tactile presentations

are in principle available for all users, she prefers to carry her own device so as to avoid potential

problems during her trip.

Original scenario

After a tiring long haul flight Maria passes through the arrivals hall of an airport in a Far Eastern

country. She is travelling light, hand baggage only. When she comes to this particular country she

knows that she can travel much lighter than a decade ago, when she had to carry a collection of

different so-called personal computing devices (laptop PC, mobile phone, electronic organisers and

sometimes beamers and printers). Her computing system for this trip is reduced to one highly

personalised communications device, her ‘P–Com’ that she wears on her wrist.

AmI opportunities

Maria’s P-com can be equipped with specialised interfaces (e.g., a foldable tactile interface). When

necessary, the P-com can communicate with sophisticated peripherals (e.g., a tactile 3-D system)

available in the environment.

Maria calls the P-Com her ‘key of keys’ because it almost invisibly unlocks the doors she meets on

her trip. It allows her to move around in an ambience that is shaped according to her needs and

preferences. In the past travelling involved many different and complicated transactions with all

sorts of different service vendors, often with gaps and incompatibilities between the different

services. In the past few years, a series of multi-service vendors (MSVs) have emerged offering

complete packages of services linked to the P-Com that tailor the user’s environment according to

their preferences. User preferences are set up during an ‘initiation period’ during which personal

agents (personal-servants or perservs) are instructed or learn how to obey their master’s wishes.

These agents are in continual negotiation with those of participating service providers (such as

shops, rental companies, hotels and so on).

AmI opportunities

This new situation, of interest for all people, can be particularly interesting for blind people, who

may presently have problems in accessing complex information services.

A particular feature of this trip is that the country that Maria is visiting has since the previous year

embarked on an ambitious ambient intelligence infrastructure programme. Thus her visa for the trip

was self-arranged and she is able to stroll through immigration without stopping because her P-

Com is dealing with the ID checks as she walks.

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Problems

Navigating the environment.

Possible solutions

The P-Com in communication with AmI guides Maria through the airport (e.g., by voice, or using

haptic cues).

This requires:

• The knowledge of her position in the airport (granted by AmI);

• The possibility of controlling the presence of unpredictable obstacles (people, baggage, etc.).

The second prerequisite can be addressed through two approaches:

• The first is based on the features of the AmI itself, which could contain a control system able to

monitor tagged objects in real time and communicate with the P-com of passengers;

• The second is based on a personal system (artificial virtual guide dog), that is a set of sensors

(e.g., a worn T.V. camera, or some type of ultrasound or laser) able to spot possible obstacles. RFID

on objects can be used for signalling the presence of obstacles to the virtual guide dog.

AmI opportunities

Navigation in the environment is considered as a problem for a blind person. Instead of creating

new obstacles, AmI has the potentiality of offering a solution to the mobility of blind people in all

environments where its facilities are deployed.

Tracking people and offering context related information is supposed to be one of the standard

features of AmI.

A rented car has been reserved for her and is waiting in an earmarked bay. The car opens as she

approaches. It starts at the press of a button: she doesn’t need a key. She still has to drive the car

but she is supported in her journey downtown to the conference centre-hotel by the traffic guidance

system that had been launched by the city government as part of the ‘AmI-Nation’ initiative two

years earlier.

Problems

Maria cannot drive.

Possible solutions

She uses a taxi.

a) Her P-Com can guide her to the taxi rank or

b) The taxi driver was informed from Maria’s arrival beforehand and he picks her up at the door of

the arrival lounge.

The taxi driver’s and Maria’s P-Coms can communicate so that the driver can locate Maria.

AmI opportunities

See previous point.

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Downtown traffic has been a legendary nightmare in this city for many years, and draconian steps

were taken to limit access to the city. But Maria has priority access rights into the central cordon

because she has a reservation in the car park of the hotel. Central access however comes at a

premium price, in Maria’s case it is embedded in a deal negotiated between her personal agent and

the transaction agents of the car-rental and hotel chains. Her firm operates centralised billing for

these expenses and uses its purchasing power to gain access at attractive rates. Such preferential

treatment for affluent foreigners was highly contentious at the time of the introduction of the route

pricing system and the government was forced to hypothecate funds from the tolling system to the

public transport infrastructure in return.

In the car Maria’s teenage daughter comes through on the audio system. Amanda has detected

from ‘En Casa’ system at home that her mother is in a place that supports direct voice contact.

However, even with all the route guidance support Maria wants to concentrate on her driving and

says that she will call back from the hotel.

AmI opportunities

Maria has the advantage of being able to speak immediately with her daughter.

Maria is directed to a parking slot in the underground garage of the newly constructed building of

the Smar-tel Chain. She is met in the garage by the porter – the first contact with a real human in

our story so far! He helps her with her luggage to her room.

Her room adopts her ‘personality’ as she enters. The room temperature, default lighting and a range

of video and music choices are displayed on the video wall.

Problems

The traditional remote control is not accessible.

Possible solutions

Maria can use the P-Com. Alternatively, AmI can describe to her the layout and the functionalities

of the remote control.

AmI opportunities

AmI knows itself and its components. If necessary, it is able to describe the layout and the

functionalities of the remote control and of the entire room.

She needs to make some changes to her presentation – a sales pitch that will be used as the basis

for a negotiation later in the day.

Using voice commands she adjusts the light levels and commands a bath.

Problems

Maria cannot do two acoustic activities simultaneously.

Possible solutions

The actions must be sequenced, or an alternative interfaces (Braille) addressing a different modality

may be used.

AmI opportunities

AmI is able to organize sequentially the flow of information and the performance of the necessary

tasks, allocating the necessary time.

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Then she calls up her daughter on the video wall, while talking she uses a traditional remote control

system to browse through a set of webcast local news bulletins from back home that her daughter

tells her about. They watch them together.

Problems

She can not watch the news, she can listen to the news.

Possible solutions

Listening to the news and communicating with her daughter must be sequenced in some way.

AmI opportunities

The possibility of watching the news together and being able to comment them adds a very

important social dimension to the interaction.

Later on she ‘localises’ her presentation with the help of an agent that is specialised in advising on

local preferences (colour schemes, the use of language). She stores the presentation on the secure

server at headquarters back in Europe. In the hotel’s seminar room where the sales pitch is to take

place, she will be able to call down an encrypted version of the presentation and give it a post

presentation decrypt life of 1.5 minutes.

Problems

Maria cannot see her presentation (neither the colour scheme).

Possible solutions

The agent that advises on preferred colour schemes should be reliable enough to detect and correct

eventual contrast and related problems. Alternatively, a connection with the office is established

through the broadband network, in order to allow a visual inspection of the results.

If Maria had not been born blind and knew colours, she can be informed vocally of the colour

scheme.

AmI opportunities

The additional opportunities offered by AmI are related to the availability of broadband

communication facilities. Maria can be helped by colleagues, who can work cooperatively across

the network. In many situations human support can be more effective and acceptable than

technological support.

The hotel offers neutral third part hosting of presentations but Maria wants to be sure for her own

peace of mind that some of the sensitive material in the presentation will not sit around on a 3rd

party server for prying eyes to see. To do this work, Maria is using hardware provided by the hotel,

but with security clearance and access to her personal home workspace guaranteed by her P-Com.

AmI opportunities

Security is built in the system.

She goes downstairs to make her presentation…this for her is a high stress event. Not only is she

performing alone for the first time, the clients concerned are well known to be tough players. Still,

she doesn’t actually have to close the deal this time. As she enters the meeting she raises

communications access thresholds to block out anything but red-level ‘emergency’ messages.

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Problems

Maria needs to know who is in the room.

Maria needs to know when she can start her presentation.

Maria needs to control the pace of the presentation.

Possible solutions

The P-Coms communicate and exchange the information on who is attending the meeting.

She gets a multi-modal confirmation (voice through earphone plus vibrator) that the presentation

is ready for display.

There is a tactile display in the room or she can use the personal tactile display. The tactile display

has a copy of the presentation plus additional control functions (active functions), pointing facilities

and slide content details.

AmI opportunities

Probably a normal handshake could be as efficient and more pleasant.

In AmI the wide availability of tactile displays is part of the built in virtual reality interfaces.

The meeting is rough, but she feels it was a success. Coming out of the meeting she lowers the

communication barriers again and picks up a number of amber level communications including one

from her cardio-monitor warning her to take some rest now.

The day has been long and stressing. She needs to chill out with a little meditation and medication.

For Maria the meditation is a concert on the video wall and the medication….a large gin and tonic

from her room’s minibar.

2. Dimitrios

Original scenario

It is four o’clock in the afternoon. Dimitrios, a 32 year-old person working in a food - multinational,

is taking a coffee at his office’s cafeteria, together with his boss and some colleagues. He doesn’t

want to be excessively bothered during this pause. Nevertheless, all the time he is receiving and

dealing with incoming calls and mails.

He is proud of ‘being in communication with mankind’: as are many of his friends and some

colleagues. Dimitrios is wearing, embedded in his clothes, a ‘gateway’ or digital avatar of himself,

familiarly known as ‘Digital Me’ or ‘D-Me’. A D-Me is both a learning device, learning about

Dimitrios from his interactions with his environment, and an acting device offering communication,

processing and decision-making functionality. Dimitrios has partly ‘programmed’ the D-Me himself,

at a very initial stage: it was, he says, a great personal experience to formalise somehow his identity

and the way he envisaged his relations. At the time, he thought he would ‘upgrade’ this initial data

periodically. But he didn’t. He feels quite confident with his D-Me and relies upon its ‘intelligent

PDA-like’ reactions.

AmI opportunities

Even if blind people do not normally have problems in interpersonal communication help in

processing of the complex flow of communications and decision making can be very interesting.

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Dimitrios has a ‘3P/3CAG D-Me’-it allows him to specify three privacy levels (3P) for personal data

matched to three separate ‘closed access group’ (3CAG) memberships.

AmI opportunities

Privacy is a built in facility of AmI.

At 4:10 p.m. following other calls of secondary importance - answered formally in a smoothly

multilingual reproduction of Dimitrios’ voice and typical accent, a call from his wife is further

analysed by his D-Me. The D-Me confronts available data registered from Dimitrios’ environment

(voices, themes, location, other ‘patched’ objects) to match the situation with this private call

(Dimitrios’ wife’s voice, theme, emotional level). In a first attempt, Dimitrios’ ‘avatar-like’ voice runs

a brief conversation with Dimitrios’ wife, with the intention of negotiating a delay while explaining

his current situation.

Simultaneously, Dimitrios’ D-Me has caught a message from an older person’s D-Me, located in the

nearby metro station. This senior has left his home without his medicine and would feel at ease

knowing where and how to access similar drugs in an easy way. He has addressed his query in

natural speech to his D-Me. Dimitrios happens to suffer from similar health problems and uses the

same drugs. Dimitrios’ D-Me processes the data available to offer information to the senior. It

‘decides’ neither to reveal Dimitrios’ identity (privacy level), nor to offer Dimitrios’ direct help (lack

of availability), but to list the closest drug shops, alternative drugs and contacts to a self-help group

and medical contacts nearby in case of emergency. This information is shared with the senior’s D-

Me, rather than with the senior himself, to avoid useless information overload.

The D-Me is equipped with voice, pattern and patch recognition capacity. It has to identify places

and people, but also to register enough data to record the relevant events of Dimitrios’ life to

process it in its DMe profile and offer it to other DMe’s.

AmI opportunities

Functions of pattern and patch recognition can have an important impact on access to information

by blind people.

Meanwhile his wife’s call is now interpreted by his D-Me as sufficiently pressing to mobilise

Dimitrios. It ‘rings’ him using a pre-arranged call tone. Dimitrios takes up the call with one of the

available ‘Displayphones’ in the cafeteria. Since the diffusion of D-Me, fewer people run around

with mobile terminals. Public and private spaces have display terminals and your D-Me can point

at the closest….functioning one!

Problems

Possible problems in localising the displayphone.

Possible solutions

The P-com can communicate with the displayphone and, in cooperation with AmI, helps navigation

to it.

Alternatively Dimitrios can wear a special P-com that allows him to communicate directly with his

wife.

AmI opportunities

The selection of different telecommunication facilities is available.

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Dimitrios’ wife hates his D-Me. She suspects him living parallel lives and whatever the practical

aspects, she definitely would prefer having himright away on the phone. It has been a source of

conflict from the start.

The ‘emergency’ is about their child’s homework. While doing his homework their 9 year-old son is

meant to offer some insights on everyday life in Egypt. In a brief 3-way telephone conference,

Dimitrios offers to pass over the query to the D-Me to search for an available direct contact with a

child in Egypt. Ten minutes later, his son is videoconferencing at home with a girl of his own age,

and recording this real-time translated conversation as part of his homework. All communicating

facilities have been managed by Dimitrios’ D-Me, even while it is still registering new data and

managing other queries. The Egyptian correspondent is the daughter of a local businessman, well

off and quite keen on technologies. Some luck (and income…) had to play a part in what might

become a long lasting new relationship.

AmI opportunities

For a blind person, normally communicating by voice an automatic translated conversation could

be particularly useful.

Managing a service while choosing the best telecommunication means for the videoconference

forms part of the role of the D-Me.

3. Carmen

Original scenario

The driver is part of a carpooling scheme of the transport management systems in the urban area

where Carmen lives. Advanced payment and transactions systems are in place, which are able to

calculate the amount of money that goes to the driver and the amount that goes to the transport

operators.

It is a normal weekday morning. Carmen wakes and plans her travel for the day. She wants to leave

for work in half an hour and asks AmI, by means of a voice command, to find a vehicle to share

with somebody on her route to work. AmI starts searching the trip database and, after checking the

willingness of the driver, finds someone that will pass by in 40 minutes. The in-vehicle biosensor has

recognised that this driver is a non-smoker – one of Carmen requirements for trip sharing. From

that moment on, Carmen and her driver are in permanent contact if wanted (e.g. to allow the driver

to alert Carmen if he/she will be late). Both wear their personal area networks (PAN) allowing

seamless and intuitive contacts.

Problems

Need of special arrangements for travelling and meeting.

Possible solutions

For the trip sharing, the Carmen’s Aml informs the driver of her profile’s data related to her

disability, the destination and time details of the desire route, the way that he or she will recognise

her at a meeting point, and the parameters for establishing (PAN) connection from the moment that

they will agree.

The driver is notified of Carmen’s disability as this may have certain implications, for example in

arranging the meeting point.

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AmI opportunities

AmI knows the abilities/disabilities of Carmen and, if authorised by her, can use this information for

helping in arranging her travelling to work.

Objects can be tracked through radio-frequency identification tags. These e-tags are very small,

maximum of the size of a grain of rice and can be embedded in everyday objects. Everyone carrying

a device equipped with a reader could access additional information and services relating to the

tagged item.

AmI opportunities

Tags can be very useful for blind people. They can offer information to the blind persons or can be

interrogated by them.

While taking her breakfast coffee Carmen lists her shopping since she will have guests for dinner

tonight. She would like also to cook a cake and the e-fridge flashes the recipe. It highlights the

ingredients that are missing: milk and eggs. She completes the shopping on the e-fridge screen and

asks for it to be delivered to the closest distribution point in her neighbourhood. This can be a shop,

the postal office or a franchised nodal point for the neighbourhood where Carmen lives. All goods

are smart tagged, so that Carmen can check the progress of her virtual shopping expedition, from

any enabled device at home, the office or from a kiosk in the street. All goods are smart tagged, so

that Carmen can check the progress of her virtual shopping expedition, from any enabled device at

home, the office or from a kiosk in the street. She can be informed during the day on her shopping,

agree with what has been found, ask for alternatives, where they are and when they will be

delivered.

Problems

Need of alternative communication with the environment.

Possible solutions

Carmen’s P-com in communication with her e-fridge voices the recipe.

The system concludes by listing the missing ingredients.

Carmen completes the shopping list through brief voice commands.

When Carmen is connected to the shop, all the information stored in tags is translated in a properly

encoded format for her to receive. Carmen may choose to hear or read (e.g., in Braille) brief

descriptions of the goods, or to have a full presentation of a particular product or store shelf.

Presentations may contain information for the product characteristics (size, colour, and weight), the

packing, the price, potential offers or alternative selections and other information that will help her

to make her choice. Carmen’s P-workstation enables her to explore and manipulate 3D models and

artefacts by means of tactile interaction.

AmI opportunities

The wide availability of speech interfaces is very important for blind people.

Tags in connection with telecommunication networks can help in exploring the local and remote

environment.

Tactile displays are supposed to be widely available.

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In this scenario the environmental management system is not only connected to sensors that

control vehicle engines or the police, which in case of accidents can transfer information to the

traffic control network to re-route traffic. The system is also able to alert individuals with allergies

to certain types of pollutants when a dangerous threshold is reached. Individuals will be informed

of the unhealthy atmosphere and can decide whether to go out or stay home.

Forty minutes later Carmen goes downstairs onto the street, as her driver arrives. When Carmen

gets into the car, the VAN system (Vehicle Area Network) registers her and by doing that she

sanctions the payment systems to start counting.

Problems

Difficulties in reaching