User:Peterkaptein/Roomware

"Roomware" is a set of interactive and clustered applications running in a defined space. This defined space can be a room, a building, a public space, a city block or a combination of all. The interaction can take place via sensors, responsive devices, screens and projectors.

Using Roomware these defined spaces can become "aware" of the people and devices within those spaces and offer or facilitate different means of interaction. This interaction can be between people and spaces, people and responsive devices, responsive devices and responsive devices and between between people and people. The interaction between people and people and people and spaces can take place via projection screens, mobile phones and physical objects like machines and devices in those spaces.

Roomware can be used for home automation and relates to the "web of things". Possible implementations of Roomware can be: linking people's photographs to the screens of a club, sharing musical tastes with the DJ, finding other interesting people on your mobile phone by connecting to a local Roomware installation, a photo booth activated by the entry tickets of two people, etc.

Roomware, Germany
One of the first uses and trademarks of Roomware is by GMD’s Integrated Publication and Information Systems Institute (IPSI) in Darmstadt. A quote from their current location. Roomware® consists of computer-augmented room elements with integrated information and communication technology facilitating new forms of human-computer interaction. They are part of an approach that the ‘world around us’ is the interface to information and for the cooperation of people. The Roomware® components were developed at GMD’s Integrated Publication and Information Systems Institute (IPSI) in Darmstadt.

The Roomware components address also the potential of different interaction opportunities with (smart) artefacts. Examples for interacting with large vertical displays as, e.g., interactive walls are provided by the DynaWall; interacting with horizontal displays as, e.g., via the InteracTable or the ConnecTables. Examples of interaction and collaboration of several people using multiple artefacts are provided, e.g., by the combination of CommChairs with the DynaWall. The setting is complemented by the Passage mechanism (Konomi et al., 1999) which provides an intuitive way for the physical transportation of virtual information structures using arbitrary physical objects, so called ‘Passengers’. An overview of the different Roomware components is shown in the picture above. The roomware components were developed in close cooperation with industry (e.g., Wilkhahn) in the Future Office Dynamics Consortium and won several design prices. Some of them, e.g., the InteracTable, are available as commercial products via the spin-off company foresee.

Roomware, Holland
The Dutch Roomware project was founded in 2006 by Robert Gaal, James Burke and Tijs Teulings. It is not related to the German project. Looking for a fun project to do geeky stuff together, Teulings, Burke and Gaal started the Roomware Project and the Roomware Devhouses: a one day hackathon where developers could work together or alone on Roomware installations. The first five series of Roomware devhouses were held in Amsterdam at the office of Peter Kaptein in 2006 and 2007. At the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 the Devhouse moved to other locations including the office where Robert Gaal resided.

There the Devhouses got discontinued.

In march 2009 Peter Kaptein and Alexander Zeh created a presentation at the Mobile Dev Camp, organized by Peter Robinett, based on some concepts they had in mind for a while, using the mobile phone as a device to scan for Roomware applications in the neighborhood using GPS to locate the services. The presentation recieved positive responses from two representatives from Nokia: inviting Zeh and Kaptein to do the presentation at the Nokia office. Even though that did not follow through, Kaptein and Zeh felt that the Roomware concept might deserve a new impulse.

In June 2009 at a dinner with the core people consisting of James Burke, Tijs Teulings, Tom Burger and Robert Gaal, James Burke stated that: "my sister wanted to do a Roomware party with her girlfriends but was not able to set it up because it was too difficult and obscure" at which a new direction was set nicknamed: "Help James' sister to do a Roomware party". The Roomware environment should be: easy to install, easy to use and easy to develop for. Anyone should be able to have it up and running in only a matter of minutes.

The "Roomware server"
The first version of the Roomware server was written by Tom Burger. It was done in Java. This Roomware server included an Bluetooth reader using the Bluecove open source Java library to read the presence of bluetooth devices in the room. It presented the found bluetooth devices in an XML list. Development of extensions were to be done in Java and complied with the server. In 2007 and 2008 several classes were added: for RFID readers and communicating with a bluetooth phone application - for a festival in Utrecht.

On August 30, 2009 a new version was sketched by Peter Kaptein and initially written by Tom Burger during a Roomware workshop held in Amsterdam. The new design was aimed to make the Roomware server agnostic of any programming language or technology: opening the platform up for more developers. The main design changes were this: 1) The Roomware server itself will act as a dumb message switch: sending messages from one Roomware device to another 2) Connecting to the Roomware server is done via Sockets. 3) The Roomware server will have no awareness of the content of the messages.

From October 4 to October 7 Peter Kaptein created a third version of the Roomware server in C# to cater a series of solutions to be released in the first quarter of 2010 as a "Roomware Starter Kit" including samples and ready-to-use classes for C# and Flash.

Known implementations of Roomware
(Add list of known implementations)