The company Dohi Sweden is developing a user interface product. This interface will deliver interactive content on a multi-touch screen surface. The system will provide a user-friendly way to populate touch-screen surfaces with interactive real-time multi-media contents. The interactive surface is populated by a client computer, connected to the internet. Third party applications will render interactive multi-media content on the touch-screen.This thesis report will provide an operating system (OS), for the client computer, that display interactive multi-media content. Known technologies are presented in the report. These technologies are considered as components for the construction of the OS. The client computer can be a target for different malicious software and penetration attempts. I will address the security risks and different aspects of modern computer security. A proof-of-concept OS will be a subject for security evaluation.

Today many libraries offer their services via Internet and reach billions of visitors in different ages. The problem is that most of these library web sites are not customized for the users and they don’t deliver a good user experience. In this thesis we have studied both the interface and the users of an Open Public Access Catalog called CS Library. We found out how the users use the current system and how they want to use it. To achieve this we gathered data with different user studies at the Ume°a city library. A new interface was developed from the outcome of our user study. We created a set of guidelines that were followed when a new user customized design was developed for CS Library. The new design offers a better user experience and is customized by the users needs, desires and thoughts. The new design has been implemented as an interactive prototype with HTML, CSS, Javascript and Actionscript to convey a better feeling of the interface.

JavaScript is the de facto language for client-side scripting on the web and has in recent years received a great boost in performance thanks to the `browser wars' where the different browser vendors compete to get higher market shares. AgX is a physics engine developed by Algoryx in Umeå, intended for use in simulations. This thesis explores possible methods of integrating JavaScript with AgX and in extension the possibility of integrating AgX into the web browser as a plugin, effectively enabling AgX for use in different web applications. Efforts were made to combine the embedded JavaScript API with the AgX browser plugin. This was found to be unfeasible for different reasons, although the AgX plugin as a separate piece of software was shown to work well.

This Master’s thesis aims to explore how children and teen-agers (i.e. learners) interact and create a use for information and communication technology in the classroom during their lectures. The study is based on distributed cognition theory in order to describe a cognitive  system which involves interactions among humans (i.e. learners), artifacts which they use (i.e. information and communication technology active boards) and the environment in which they interact (i.e. a classroom). User’s (such as the children, teen-agers and teachers) interaction with information and communication technology can lead towards new and important ways of invention in the classroom. No doubt the ideas, thoughts and vision of these users (such as children and teenagers) are very important which can change an environment that supports learning. The Distributed Cognition Approach is a widely acknowledged approach, but it is less commonly applied in order to observe learner’s (such as children and teen-agers) interaction with information and communication technologies in their learning setting. Therefore this study aims to explore the children and teen-agers interaction with the information and communication technology active boards by using distributed cognition theory which can be expressed as important and interesting for the researchers, designers and developers in evaluating, designing and developing effective interactive technologies that supports better education. Through an empirical case study, qualitative data have been collected using interviews and observations. Based on related research, related theory, qualitative results and analysis, a conclusion is presented which shows that (with the help of the analysis of distributed cognition theory) the information and communication technology active boards seems to engage the children and teen-ager’s to collaborative learning activities which supports collaboration and shared knowledge. It helps to capture their concentration towards learning which can increase the opportunities and possibilities of better learning results related to their education. The distributed cognition approach provides an analytic and investigative methodology in order to examine the learner’s interactions with artifacts which are difficult with other traditional methodologies to the analysis of cognitive-tasks. This approach highlights the complicated interdependencies among learners and artifacts in collaborative learning activities.

Electricity can be a difficult topic to grasp since it is abstract, it is e.g. not possible to see the current and the voltage in a circuit. If electricity can be simulated and visualized, it can become less abstract and easier to understand. This thesis covers the process of simulating electricity in real-time together with a mechanics simulator, called Algodoo. The process of analyzing electric circuits from a computers point of view is covered as well as different ways of simulating electric motors, generators and lasers. A large part of the thesis covers how to integrate the electricity and the mechanics simulators in a stable and accurate way. Furthermore, making the objects of the mechanics simulator able to conduct electricity is also covered. The thesis shows that it is possible to simulate electricity in real-time, and that physically correct conducting objects requires a lot of processing power, but can be simplified without losing too much correctness. The thesis also shows that the electrical and mechanics simulators preferably should be solved together to get a stable simulation. Simulating electricity opens up an endless number of interactive scenarios, e.g. mechanical switches, potentiometers, relays and even logic gates. It can be a helpful aid as an introduction to electronics and since the simulators are integrated, it can also provide an introduction to mechanical work. The amount of energy required to perform dierent tasks can be compared and analyzed.

The purpose of this master’s thesis is to examine the possibilities to build an efficient and accurate distributed IP traffic generator based on a open source software traffic generator. The problem lies in the demand for high performance traffic generators during quality assurance of IP equipment and the high price of commercial hardware traffic generators. An evaluation is conducted to identify a suitable traffic generator, given a set of requirements that the traffic generator must fulfill to be usable in performance testing. A distributed system utilizing the most suitable traffic generator is then implemented. The result and conclusion of this report is that hardware traffic generators are superior to the software based counterpart due to the several drawbacks that software traffic generators suffers from, such as disc I/O and CPU load.

Collision detection in physics engines often use primitives such as spheres and boxes since collisions between these objects are straightforward to compute. More complicated objects can then be modeled using compounds of these simpler primitives. However, in the pursuit of making it easier to construct and simulate complicated objects, triangle meshes are a good alternative since it is usually the format used by modeling tools. This thesis demonstrates how triangle meshes can be used directly as collision objects within a physics engine. The collision detection is done using triangle mesh models with tests accelerated using a tree-based bounding volume hierarchy structure. OpenCL is a new open industry framework for writing programs on heterogeneous platforms, including highly parallel platforms such as Graphics Processing Units(GPUs). Through the use of OpenCL, parallelization of triangle mesh collision detection is implemented for the GPU, then evaluated and compared to the CPU implementation

Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model. This process requires heavy computations. The iPhone has very limited hardware. The purpose of this project is to optimize the rendering process in the iPhone game "Top Gear, Stunt School" developed by Resolution Interactive AB. This thesis describes the evaluation and implementation of different optimizations used for the game.

Computer based information systems play an important role in modern military combat vehicles. The crew needs to be able to quickly get information about both the vehicle and its outer surroundings in order to quickly make the correct decisions. In this report, we describe the development of a prototype new information system for the BvS10 vehicle, manufactured by BAE System Hägglunds AB in Örnsköldsvik. An important aspect of the system is the time it takes from the point that the information is generated by the vehicle sensors until it is presented to the user. The system must be able to ensure that it never displays information that is out of date. Thus, it is important to create a layer and component based architecture for the solution, making it possible to control, in detail, the information’s age as it moves through the system. In connection to this, we also perform a deeper study of component based design in general and for Microsoft .NET in particular. We also discuss the timing related problems that can occur on garbage collection programming platforms (such as .NET) and show some of their solutions proposed in the scientific literature.

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