From Devices to

1
From Devices to Ambient Intelligence The
Transformation of Consumer Electronics

• ROEL PIEPER
• EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
• ROYAL PHILIPS ELECTRONICS

2
Whats Different About the Living Room?
Living Room
Office
Office
Lean-forward mode We are concentrating Where
were productive
Laid-back mode Our guard is down
Where we relax, socialize, and live
functionality attention required
Value
Value functionality
Whatever we think, our kids will prove us wrong
3
Imagining the Destination, and Steps Today

• Where were going
• Road signs, not a crystal ball
• Experiments and prototypes
• Focus on all ages, especially the younger ones

4
Envisioning the Destination The Unmediated
Fulfillment of Needs
Walk from place to place
Degree of Conscious Mediation
Circulate blood to limbs
Need
High
Needs should be consciously mediated only to the
extent that they are out-of-the-ordinary, or
unpredictable Our ordinary needs should be
satisfied with minimal effort
Write a letter
Walk from place to place
Circulate blood to limbs
Low
5
Envisioning the Destination Moving to an
Implicit, Anticipatory Model
Anticipatory Implicit
Instructional Explicit
Examples
Unconsciously riding a bicycle
The Learning Process
Learning to ride a bicycle
The Development of Computers
Personalized, anticipatory need-fulfillment
VUI
GUI
High-level languages
Assembly and machine code

• Oliver Sacks To See and Not See

6
Envisioning the DestinationAmbient Intelligence

• Embedded Many invisible dedicated devices
• throughout the environment.
• Personalized The devices know who you are.
• Adaptive Change in response to you and to
  the environment.
• Anticipatory Anticipate your desires as far as
  possible without conscious mediation
  PRE-sponsive, not responsive.

Desktop metaphors
Life metaphors
7
Examples Today, and for the Future

• Experiments weve done at Philips and elsewhere
• Great successes and striking failures
• Cassette Tape, CD Player, Laser Video Disc
• CD-I, System 2000
• Human needs are complex, hard to predict
• Requires substantial experimentation and
  investment
• But making huge strides in learning about
  people, and filling individual needs, with
  ambient intelligence

8
Experiments in Natural InterfacesReducing the
Difficulty of Mediating / Instructing

• Multimodal Interfaces
• Input Speech, gesture, tactile
• Feedback Tactile, auditory, visual
• ...Redundancy, naturalness of use

Human-like Interaction (HUI VUI) The importance
of voice speech recognition (FreeSpeech98) Unexp
ected outcomes a voice-activated remote control
Clearboard Dr. Hiroshi Ishii
9
Experiments in Situational AwarenessAnticipating
Needs in a Changing Environment

• Environment changes constantly
• Devices must track and adapt
• Seamless, plug-free networks
• Self-configuring
• Short-distance wireless, IR
• Mobility, Control Wands
• Sensor technology
• Penny tags and smart materials

GPS Intelligence Self-positioning,
Contextual adaptation
Philips control wands
Communicating Devices
10
Experiments in PersonalizationThe Environment
Understands You

• Adaptation to user involves understanding
• Who the user is
• Users particular needs, desires, and habits
• Biometrics crucial to identify the user
• Voice, fingerprint, face, position
• Personalization learning your explicit and
  implicit needs
• Double Agent
• Security both individual and family
• Absolutely critical for market acceptance

Double Agent
11
Experiments in Ambient IntelligenceMaking
Everyday Objects Smarter

• The most radical, futuristic vision involves the
  most prosaic, mundane objects
• Technologies need to adapt to economic
  constraints
• Plastic semiconductors
• TriMedia Chip Architecture (Audio, Video, Data)
• for Digital TV
• Light-emitting Polymers
• The economics of Ambient Intelligence

12
Scale Consumer Devices, Rather Than PCs

• The entire market for consumer PCs, 1998
• 20 Million PCs sold to consumers
• Philips alone in 1997 shipped
• 11 M Shavers
• 30 M Displays (monitors, plasma, tubes)
• 2.4 Billion Lights
• 18 Billion Semiconductors

Philips covers a broad CE market with 40B in
sales and 280,000 people with a huge retail and
direct sales network Hundreds of intelligent
points-of-presence throughout home
13
C O N C L U S I O N
The digital living room succeeds only insofar as
it actively recognizes, builds on, and embraces
our humanity. Our homes and tools will adapt to
us and to our dynamic environments anticipating
and fulfilling our needs.

• Only when theres a seamless integration of
  technology with life, when its no longer a
  curiosity but an ordinary and unsurprising way of
  satisfying our everyday needs and desires only
  then will we have seen the beginnings of a true
  technological revolution.

The Consumer Electronics industry is well
positioned to use high-volume economics and ICT
in their products