It's really exciting (and humbling) to find an entirely new vein of thought that's deeply resonant with what you've been thinking. The people behind ITEA's Ambience Project seems to be thinking along much the same lines as I was when wrote my Expectations in a World of Smart Devices essay. They even had a Symposium to talk all about it, back in November. Granted, their focus seems to be more along technological lines than the user expectations-driven axis I'm currently focused on, but it's definitely the same ballpark.
Here's a definition I like:
Ambient Intelligent environments can be characterized by the following basic elements: ubiquity, awareness, intelligence, and natural interaction. Ubiquity refers to a situation in which we are surrounded by a multitude of interconnected embedded systems, which are invisible and moved into the background of our environment. Awareness refers to the ability of the system to locate and recognize objects and people, and their intentions. Intelligence refers to the fact that the digital surrounding is able to analyze the context, adapt itself to the people that live in it, learn from their behavior, and eventually to recognize as well as show emotion. Natural Interaction finally refers to advanced modalities like natural speech- and gesture recognition, as well as speech-synthesis, which will allow a much more human-like communication with the digital environment than is possible today.
Excellent!
