<p>Recent development in modern computing has led to a more diverse use of devices within the field of mobility. Many mobile devices of today can, for instance, surf the web and connect to wireless networks, thus gradually merging the wired Internet with the mobile Internet. As mobile devices by design usually have built-in means for creating rich media content, along with the ability to upload these to the Internet, these devices are potential contributors to the already overwhelming content collection residing on the World Wide Web. While interesting initiatives for structuring and filtering content on the World Wide Web exist – often based on various forms of metadata – a unified understanding of individual content is more or less restricted to technical metadata values, such as file size and file format. These kinds of metadata make it impossible to incorporate the purpose of the content when designing applications. Answers to questions such as "why was this content created?" or "in which context was the content created?" would allow for a more specified content filtering tailored to fit the end-users cause. In the opinion of the authors, this kind of understanding would be ideal for content created with mobile devices which purposely are brought into various environments. This is why we in this thesis have investigated in which way descriptions of contexts could be caught, structured and expressed as machine-readable semantics.</p><p>In order to limit the scope of our work we developed a system which mirrored the context of ubiquitous learning activities to a database. Whenever rich media content was created within these activities, the system associated that particular content to its context. The system was tested during live trials in order to gather reliable and “real” contextual data leading to the transition to semantics by generating Rich Document Format documents from the contents of the database. The outcome of our efforts was a fully-functional system able to capture contexts of pre-defined ubiquitous learning activities and transforming these into machine-readable semantics. We would like to believe that our contribution has some innovative aspects – one being that the system can output contexts of activities as semantics in real-time, allowing monitoring of activities as they are performed.</p>

<p>The cellular phone network has been increasing rapidly during the last years. For many people the mobile phone has become an every day gadget with a wide performance and functional range. The usage of technologies like GPRS, HSCSD, EDGE and UMTS as well as the bandwidth of networks and consequently the connectivity of the phones has also increased persistently. Coming along with that, three technologies, which are ubiquitous or pervasive computing, mobile and wireless networks and location-based technologies, are making rapid progress.</p><p>The aim of this thesis is to offer an architecture for a location-based user interface in the intersection of the three technologies mentioned above. The system should work with a minimum of special hardware requirement. Not to overload the user with information, the user interface should be adaptable, context-aware and location-based. The context-data should remain extendible and adaptable.</p>

<p>Recent developments in modern computing and wireless networks allow mobile devices to be connected to the Internet regardless of their physical location. These mobile devices, such as smart phones and PDAs, have turned into powerful multimedia units allowing users to become producers of rich media content. This latest development contributes to the ever-growing amount of digital material existing on the World Wide Web, and at the same time creates a new information landscape that combines content coming from both, the wired and mobile Internet. Thus, it is important to understand the context or settings in which mobile devices are used, and what is the digital content produced by the different users. In order to gain more knowledge about this domain, we have investigated how to extend the standard metadata related to content with a metadata domain describing the context, or settings in which the content has been created.</p><p>In order to limit the scope of our work, we have focused our efforts in a specific case taking place in a project called AMULETS. The AMULETS-project contains all of the elements we need in order to resemble the contextual setting in a metadata model. Combined with the technical metadata associated to the digital content, we try to display the benefits of capturing the different attributes of the context that were present when the content was generated. Additionally, we have created a proof-of-concept Entity Relation (ER)-diagram which proposes how the metadata models can be implemented in a relational database. As the nature of the thesis is design-oriented, a model has been developed and it will be illustrated throughout this report. The aim of the thesis is to show how it is possible to design new metadata models that combine both relevant attributes of the context and content in order to develop new educational activities supported by location-based services.</p>

The recent advancement in computer-integrated manufacturing related technologies (e.g. internet of things, information technology and service-oriented architecture) has prompted the need for a novel effective, efficient and economical automatic identification and data collection solution for manufacturing scenario. Accurate and timely manufacturing front line information is essential to guarantee the functions and performance of enterprise information systems (EISs) deployed, and is the basis of entire information flow in enterprise. Both researchers and commercial players have made great contributions to the fields of enterprise information systems and data capturing technologies. However, real-time data processing and on-line knowledge support to seamlessly link up the EISs and shop floor front-line operations are still open to discuss. This research discusses an overall solution for manufacturing real-time field data capturing, processing and disseminating strategy in ubiquitous manufacturing environment, named Ubiquitous Manufacturing Platform (UMP). This research discusses the design and development of UMP, which is an innovative framework to integrate Auto-ID hardware devices and software services for facilitating manufacturing shop floor production management. The proposed event-driven UMP aims to enable shop floor real-time visibility and traceability, and bridge the gap between frontline operations and management level activities (e.g. planning and scheduling). On one hand, production management objectives are fulfilled through defined and configured services, and eventually carried out at shop floor operating sites with managed Auto-ID devices. On the other hand, the generated shop floor real-time field data is captured as events, which are then processed and aggregated to leveled meaningful information to satisfy various information requirements for different roles in an enterprise. UMP is expected to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of production supervision and decision making, and to reduce the production disturbances. This research has made the following achievements and contributions. Firstly, a scalable and reconfigurable infrastructure for manufacturing real-time field data capturing, processing and disseminating, named UMP, is developed based on several core technologies to achieve seamless dual-way connectivity and interoperability among enterprise application systems, shop floor, production line and workstation levels. Secondly, an innovative information processing mechanism, namely critical event model, is designed to connect the real-time field data in manufacturing processes to implied business context information. Based on this model, real-time field data is able to be organized in various abstract levels, so as to be useful for making adaptive enterprise decisions. Thirdly, a lightweight devices middleware solution named Gateway Operating System (GOS), is designed and proposed to support UMP. GOS enables a unified system interface for manufacturing companies to deploy and manage their heterogeneous Auto-ID devices. Furthermore, it allows multiple back-end manufacturing applications to share the same Auto-ID infrastructure, and shields the application systems from the implementation detail of enabling hardware devices. Fourthly, the gateway event processing procedure is presented to implement the engine for shop floor real-time field data capturing, processing and disseminating. Based on the Auto-ID infrastructure, it combines the concept of event and software agents into workflow management to realize real-time reconfigurable ubiquitous manufacturing. / published_or_final_version / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

With its mixing of real and virtual, Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that has attracted lots of attention from the science community and is seen as a perfect way to visualize context-related information. Computer generated graphics is presented to the user overlaid and registered with the real world and hence augmenting it. Promising intelligence amplification and higher productivity, AR has been intensively researched over several decades but has yet to reach a broad audience. This thesis presents efforts in bringing Augmented Reality to mobile phones and thus to the general public. Implementing technologies on limited devices, such as mobile phones, poses a number of challenges that differ from traditional research directions. These include: limited computational resources with little or no possibility to upgrade or add hardware, limited input and output capabilities for interactive 3D graphics. The research presented in this thesis addresses these challenges and makes contributions in the following areas: Mobile Phone Computer Vision-Based Tracking The first contribution of thesis has been to migrate computer vision algorithms for tracking the mobile phone camera in a real world reference frame - a key enabling technology for AR. To tackle performance issues, low-level optimized code, using fixed-point algorithms, has been developed. Mobile Phone 3D Interaction Techniques Another contribution of this thesis has been to research interaction techniques for manipulating virtual content. This is in part realized by exploiting camera tracking for position-controlled interaction where motion of the device is used as input. Gesture input, made possible by a separate front camera, is another approach that is investigated. The obtained results are not unique to AR and could also be applicable to general mobile 3D graphics. Novel Single User AR Applications With short range communication technologies, mobile phones can exchange data not only with other phones but also with an intelligent environment. Data can be obtained for tracking or visualization; displays can be used to render graphics with the tracked mobile phone acting as an interaction device. Work is presented where a mobile phone harvests a sensor-network to use AR to visualize live data in context. Novel Collaboration AR Applications One of the most promising areas for mobile phone based AR is enhancing face-to-face computer supported cooperative work. This is because the AR display permits non-verbal cues to be used to a larger extent. In this thesis, face-to-face collaboration has been researched to examine whether AR increases awareness of collaboration partners even on small devices such as mobile phones. User feedback indicates that this is the case, confirming the hypothesis that mobile phones are increasingly able to deliver an AR experience to a large audience. / On the day of the defence date the status on articles III and VIII was: Accepted.

M. Tech. Business Information Systems / Focuses on tackling the lack of access to learning content and social resources in the higher learning environment of South Africa (SA). This research is important because South African institutions of higher learning are English language environments dominated by underprepared learners and overpopulated classrooms. Moreover, the country has lately seen increased numbers of learners entering higher learning institutions demonstrating a fair rate of acceptance of social media sites (SMS).

After decades of digital developments, we are now entering a truly digital era. Digital information and communication technology has become a naturally embedded part ofthe designed environment we live in. Most parts of life are today pervaded by digital products and services. Evidence of such immersion can be noted in, for instance, media consumption. This development is gradually shaping and cultivating a media environment that is ubiquitous. Such ubiquity is manifested in media’s constant presence and thechanges in media consumption in the purview of digital innovation. Indeed, digital innovation is not only a shift in technology. It alters existing value networks and calls forrethinking existing value perceptions. While this disruptive change driven by digitizationcan be found in many industries, this thesis focuses on its impact on value networks in thenewspaper industry.The digitization of newspapers started with the introduction of the internet in the 90´sand soon emerged into new media innovations. While these new media innovations have not replaced existing media, they have been disruptive to newspaper value networks. Recently, the emergence of yet another digital innovation is specifically interesting whenstudying changes to value networks of the newspaper industry: the e-paper. This innovation (a screen technology very close to print on paper) exhibits inherent valuesthat make future replacement of print on paper a possibility. It is therefore regarded as avery promising technology in the newspaper industry. This thesis can be positioned at the intersection of the friction between forces to embarkon a new media trajectory and forces to hang on to the established structures andcontrol. The research question addressed in this thesis is: How are value networks of newspapers influenced by digital innovation? Addressing the research question, a multimethod approach was adopted to gain a broad understanding of how digital innovationinfluences value networks of newspapers. Drawing on digital innovation literature, the thesis presents a theoretical perspective with which to understand how digital innovation influences value networks. This perspective is instantiated as a model of value network configuration. The model emphasizes the multi-layered, dynamic, dialectic, and diametrical character of value networks in digital innovation. The model is offered as abasis and analytical tool to further explore value networks in digital innovation. This tool is useful for newspaper stakeholders when entering the digital era.

This thesis presents Illusion SDK: a general, extensible framework for augmented reality (AR) applications. Illusion provides loosely coupled or decoupled abstractions of sensors, trackers, and compositors. Implementations are optimized for particular use cases. Illusion’s architecture depends on only an event system and a 3D scene graph, so it is highly portable. Wrapping of third-party trackers is supported. Illusion’s current implementation targets Flash 11.4 and integrates with the Alternativa3D 8 graphics engine. To our knowledge, Illusion’s support for wrapping third-party trackers is unique among toolkits targeting the GPU-accelerated Web. Illusion performs well on MacBook Pro 13" mid-2010, where an intensive camera application can exceed 45 FPS. Generally, Illusion should perform well on hardware that uses shared video memory. Optimizations are needed for hardware that uses dedicated video memory. These optimizations are problematic in Flash 11.4 but should not generally be problematic in ports to other platforms.

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