One accessory that is notable is an external flash. Those who are meaning to improve their shots can try it out. Most people think that it is the next best investment after purchasing a digital camera. Basically, people like the idea that it can be used in many ways. Firstly, an external flash for a camera can deal with the problem of not having enough light. There are a lot of shooting scenarios that do not have enough ambient light. For instance, indoor photography and night scenes would usually result to a lot of blurring.

Contrary to what others may believe, the external flash can also be used in outdoor photography. Though it may not be as useful for landscape photography, it is definitely handy for outdoor portraits. Shots taken in strong light tend to make harsh shadows that become a distraction in the photo. With the use of flash, those shadows are made softer and subtle. Other than that, it widens the angles of the shot to be taken because users will not be so dependent on sunlight.

The external flash can also be effective for red-eye reduction. For night portraits, it is quite common to take shots with red eye when the built-in camera flash is used. More often than not, the external flash can also be more powerful. This means that people would be able to play with light and motion. They can try long exposures and multiple exposures. The bulb mode can also be experimented with if the digital camera has that feature.

Take a power shot with Canon PowerShot

The symposium addresses the following research areas in Ambient Intelligence systems:
Ubiquitous computing
Wired, wireless and ad-hoc networking, discovery mechanisms, software architectures, system integration and prototyping, portable devices.

Context Awareness
Sensors, tracking and positioning, smart devices, wearable, models of context of use, software architectures for multi platform interfaces.

Intelligence
Learning algorithms, user profiling, personalisation and adaptivity, recommenders, autonomous intelligence, agent based user interfaces.

Natural user-system interaction
Ambient interfaces, multimodal interaction, innovative interaction styles and concepts.

Student teams (of at least 2 students) are invited to describe their vision of a future office environment, in a written document and a short video.
Selected teams will be nominated for prizes and will be invited to participate in the EUSAI 2004 programme.

At EUSAI 2004, a panel of experts will select the winning teams out of the nominated entries.
The criteria for the selection will be: Innovation, Originality, Clarity and Quality of the presentation in the video and written forms (see submission guidelines).
Wild, “out of the box” ideas are welcome. All rights to the submitted ideas automatically become property of Océ Technologies B.V.

Prizes:
1st prize: 2500 Euro
2nd prize: 1500 Euro
3rd prize: 1000 Euro
For more information, please visit the Oce Student Competition’s web site available at: http://competition.oce.com.
A [PDF] version of the call for participation is also available.

List of Five Nominees
After a hard time selecting the bests candidates for the award, we have chose 5 out of the 8 projects received. The nominees are:

* Smart Office Space – User System Interaction programme, IPO department, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Team members: Anke Eyck, Kelvin Geerlings, Dina Karimova, Bernt Meerbeek, Lu Wang
* Personal Emotional Tool – Dipartamento di Scienze della Comunicazione, Sienna, Italy
Team members: A. Agueci, A. Fedeli, S. Guastaldi, D. Spigolon, M. Valentini
* The Cube: One Office Many Faces – Industrial Design department, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Team members: Loes Smits, Liane Wester, Ivo Stuyfzand, Maarten Brugmans, Jussuf Kopalit, Ingmar Hendriks
* Interficium – Department of Social Psychology of IT and Communication, Warsaw School of Social Psychology, Poland
Team members: Marcin Bober, Piotr Haltof
* The Pervasive Office – User System Interaction programme, IPO department, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Team members: Alia Amin, Barbaros Metin, Jutta Schneider, Olga Kulyk

http://web.media.mit.edu/~selker/

Biography
Dr. Ted Selker is an Associate Professor at the MIT Media and Arts Technology Laboratory, and the Director of the Context Aware Computing Lab. Context aware computing strives to create a world in which peoples desires and intentions cause computers to help them. The lab is recognized for its work in creating environments that use sensors and artificial intelligence to create so-called “virtual sensors”; adaptive models of users to create keyboardless computer scenarios. Ted is director of Counter Intelligence a form discussing kitchens and domestic technology, lifestyles and supply changes as a result of technology. Ted is also known for his work on voting technology.

Prior to joining MIT faculty in November 1999, Ted was an IBM fellow and directed Directed the User Systems Ergonomics Research lab. He has served as a consulting professor at Stanford University, taught at Hampshire, University of Massachussets at Amherst and Brown Universities and worked at Xerox PARC and Atari Research Labs.

Ted’s research has contributed to products ranging from notebook computers to operating systems. His work takes the form of prototype concept products supported by cognitive science research. He is known for the design of the TrackPoint in-keyboard pointing device found in many notebook computers, and many other innovations at IBM. Ted’s new domestic technologies have been featured on Good morning America, food channel, ABC and Discovery channel and many radio interviews and in print forums.

Ted is work has resulted in award winning products, numerous patents, papers and is often featured by the press.

Abstract
The familiar and useful come from things we recognize. Many of our favorite things’ appearance communicate their use; they show the change in their value though patina. As technologists we are now poised to imagine a world where computing objects communicate with us in-situ; where we are. We use our looks, feelings, and actions to give the computer the experience it needs to work with us.

Keyboards and mice will not continue to dominate computer user interfaces. Keyboard input will be replaced in large measure by systems that know what we want and require less explicit communication. Sensors are gaining fidelity and ubiquity to record presence and actions; sensors will notice when we enter a space, sit down, lie down, pump iron, etc. Pervasive infrastructure is recording it.

This talk will present demonstrating examples in which our intentions can be understood and acted on by computers. Our work reaches across domains to demonstrate the principle of implicit communication as plausible control for systems can be competent. Examples in the home, office, car even bicycle will be presented.

Biography
Tom Rodden is Professor of Interactive Systems at the Mixed Reality Laboratory (MRL at the University of Nottingham.  Prof. Rodden’s research interests are centred on howusers interact with and through computer systems.  He has published iwdely in the areas of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Ubiquitous Computing.

Since 2001 Prof. Rodden has been director of the Equator IRC that brings together 8 different research institutes in the UK.  The Equator IRC is a six-year programme of research to explore new technologies that interweave the physical and digtal worlds.  Equator is supported by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Abstract
Equator is an Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC) – a large scale, collaborative venture spanning eight partners and multiple disciplines including Computer Science, Electronics, Social Science, Psychology, Art and Design and Architecture and Planning. The goals of Equator are to create new devices and software platform to interweave the physical and digital worlds; to establish new methods for designing and evaluating these technologies; and to bring these technologies and methods together in a series of practical projects that directly engage users in the research process. The approach is defined by the following characteristics.

Adopting a balanced view of digital and the physical – Equator is not only concerned with how the digital can be accessed from or overlaid on the physical, but is also focused on how the physical appears to the digital.

Methods for understanding experience – Equator will combine expertise in established design methods, especially ethnography, with emerging methods from art and design and architecture and planning.

Engaging users – Equator will carry out a series of large-scale practical experiments that directly involve the public and user-organisations such as museums, performance groups, community support groups, schools.

Equator is structured around three long-term fundamental research challenges that combine with a series of practical user experience projects. The
research challenges explore long-term underlying technical and methodological issues. This talk will introduce the IRC and describe our experiences of building Ubiquitous computing in the real world.

http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson/

Biography
Thomas Erickson is an interaction designer and researcher at IBM’s T. J. Watson Research Center in New York, to whence he telecommutes from his home in Minneapolis. Prior to joining IBM Research in 1997, he spent nine years at Apple Research, five years at startup called Software Products International, and before that five years studying Cognitive Psychology at University California, San Diego.

Erickson’s current work involves studying and designing systems for supporting computer mediated communication and collaboration in groups and organizations; his principle aim is to create systems that can mesh with the social processes that govern our daily communication practices. His approach to systems design is shaped by methods developed in HCI, approaches to design drawn from architecture and urbanism, and theories and analytical approaches from rhetoric, sociology and anthropology.

Abstract
Humans are social creatures, and as such are exquisitely sensitive to the actions and interactions of their fellows. In face to face settings, the visibility of these actions and interactions and their residua serve as powerful means for shaping interaction and collaboration. However, in the digital realm, these cues are largely absent, and digitally mediated interaction often lacks the fluidity and grace that characterizes our day to day unmediated experience.

If Ambient Intelligence represents a vision of the future where we are surrounded by sensitive and responsive environments, we might ask what form this sensitivity takes, and what, exactly, is doing the responding? One view suggests that the locus of intelligence is in computational systems, and that such systems will be intelligent enough to serve us with the grace and forethought of highly competent and eternally motivated human servants. This talk explores an alternate view: that the intelligence in ambient intelligence will not reside so much in computational devices as in people, and that an important direction for inquiry involves investigating ways of designing digital environments that provide traction for the social processes that underlie human action and interaction.

1. [s] Tom Broens and Stanislav Pokraev. Context-aware, ontology-based, service discovery
2. [s] Bob Hulsebosch, Alfons Salden and Mortaza Bargh. Context-based Service Access for Train Travelers
3. [s] S.H. Kalisvaart, E.M.C. Garcia Lechner and F.J. Lefeber.System for Monitoring and Coaching of Sportsmen
4. [s] Andrés Lucero, Tatiana Lashina, Elmo Diederiks. From Imagination to Experience: The Role of Feasibility Studies in Gathering Requirements for Ambient Intelligent Products

1. [L] Elise van den Hoven and Berry Eggen. Tangible Computing in Everyday Life: Extending Current Frameworks for Tangible User Interfaces with Personal Objects
2. [L] Marianne Graves Petersen and Kaj Grønbæk. Shaping the Ambience of Homes with Domestic Hypermedia
3. [s] J.W.Frens, J.P.Djajadiningrat, C.J.Overbeeke. Rich Interaction: Issues

1. [L] Zhang Lei, Wang Xuehui, Dou Wenhua. A Fair Energy Conserving Routing Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks
2. [L] Kjeld H. Mortensen, Kari S. F. Schougaard, Ulrik P. Schultz. Distance-Based Access Modifiers Applied to Safety in Home Networks
3. [s] Jan Petzold, Faruk Bagci, Wolfgang Trumler, and Theo Ungerer. Confidence Estimation of the State-Predictor-Method

1. [L] João Nuno Silva and Paulo Ferreira. Remote code execution on ubiquitous mobile applications
2. [s] Christos Goumopoulos, Eleni Christopoulou, Nikos Drossos and Achilles Kameas. The PLANTS System: Enabling Mixed Societies of Communicating Plants and Artefacts
3. [s] Ben Salem, Matthias Rauterberg. Multiple User Profile Merging

1. [L] E Homayounvala, A.H Aghvami. Performance Evaluation of Personal Agent Migration Policies in an Ambient Use Case Scenario
2. [L] Martin Strohbach, Gerd Kortuem, Hans-Werner Gellersen, Christian Kray. Using Cooperative Artefacts as Basis for Activity Recognition
3. [L] Wim F.J. Verhaegh, Aukje E.M. van Duijnhoven, Pim Tuyls, and Jan Korst. Privacy protection in memory-based collaborative filtering

1. [L] Oguz Icoglu, Klaus A. Brunner, Ardeshir Mahdavi, and Georg Suter. Location Sensing for Self-updating Building Models
2. [L] Teresa Ko and Nina Berry. Distributed Feature Extraction for Event Identification
3. [L] Frank Siegemund and Tobias Krauer. Integrating Handhelds into Environments of Cooperating Smart Everyday Objects

1. [L] G.M.P. O’Hare, S. Keegan & M.J. O’Grady. Realizing the Ambient Intelligence Vision through the Deployment of Mobile, Intentional Agents
2. [L] Kostas Stathis and Francesca Toni. Ambient Intelligence using KGP Agents

1. [L] Florian Block, Albrecht Schmidt, Nicolas Villar, Hans W. Gellersen. Towards a Playful User Interface for Home Entertainment Systems
2. [L] Martens, Aliakseyeu & de Pijper. VIEWs: Visual Interaction Enriched Window

1. [L] Eleni Christopoulou, Achilles Kameas. Using ontologies to address key issues in ubiquitous computing systems
2. [L] Juergen Bohn, Friedemann Mattern. Super-Distributed RFID Tag Infrastructures
3. [L] Sang-Hee Park, Hye-Soo Kim, Chun-Su Park, Kyunghun Jang, and Sung-Jea Ko. QoS Provision Using Dual RF Modules in Wireless LAN

1. [L] Sérgio A. T. Barretto, Miguel Mira da Silva. Using Integration Frameworks for Developing Context-Aware Applications
2. [L] Michael Hellenschmidt, Thomas Kirste. A Generic Topology for Ambient Intelligence
3. [L] Davy Preuveneers, Jan Van den Bergh, Dennis Wagelaar, Andy Georges, Peter Rigole, Tim Clerckx, Yolande Berbers, Karin Coninx, Viviane Jonckers, Koen De Bosschere. Towards an extensible context ontology for Ambient Intelligence

1. [L] L. Balme, A. Demeure, N. Barralon, J. Coutaz, G. Calvary. ETHYLENE-RT: a Software Architecture ReferenceModel for Distributed, Migratable, and Plastic UserInterfaces
2. [L] Hans Myrhaug, Nik Whitehead, Ayse Goker, Tor Erlend Faegri and Christopher Till Lech. AmbieSense – A System and Reference Architecture for Personalised Context-Sensitive Information Services for Mobile Users
3. [s] Patrícia Dockhorn Costa, Luís Ferreira Pires, Marten van Sinderen and Diego Rios. A Services Platform for Context-Aware Applications

1. [L] Markopoulos, P., Mavromatti, I., Kameas, A.. End-User Configuration of Ambient Intelligence Environments: Feasibility from a User Perspective
2. [s] Antti Pirhonen. From Metaphors to Simulations to Idioms: Supporting the Conceptualisation Process
3. [s] Meghan Deutscher, Phillip Jeffrey, Nelson Siu. Information Capture Devices for Social Environments
4. [s] Manasawee Kaenampornpan and Eamonn O’Neill. Modelling Context: an Activity Theory Approach

Program Chairs
Panos Markopoulos (Eindhoven University of Technology)
Berry Eggen (Eindhoven University of Technology)
Emile Aarts (Philips Research)
James Crowley (INP Grenoble)

Tutorials Chair
Boris de Ruyter (Philips Research)

Workshops Chair
Ian McClelland (Philips PDSL)

Demonstrations Chair
Kristof van Laerhoven (Lancaster University)
Gerd Kortuem (Lancaster University)

Posters Chair
Wijnand IJsselsteijn (Eindhoven University of Technology)

Treasurer
Harm van Essen (Eindhoven University of Technology)

Communications and Venue
Elise van den Hoven (Eindhoven University of Technology)
Evelien Perik (Eindhoven University of Technology)

Press Liaison
Franka van Neerven – van den Broek (Eindhoven University of Technology)

Conference System Management
Natalia Romero (Eindhoven University of Technology)
Boris de Ruyter (Philips Research)
Andres Lucero (Eindhoven University of Technology)

Design
Andres Lucero (Eindhoven University of Technology)