BT shines a light on information delivery

 

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By Alun Williams

Posted on 9 Dec 2004 at 13:53

BT's broadband applications research centre is highlighting a new way for information to be delivered to your home: ambient devices.

A rather futuristic wireless technology, the system is intended to notify users of news and information using ambient light sequences and sound alerts. And not just any news, but personalised information: perhaps emails from particular individuals or news on particular topics.

To find out more, BT claims, you would simply wave your hand across such devices, perhaps prompting them to read out the relevant details of the email or news alert.

The technology has been developed by BT's broadband research team because the telco is hoping it will help open the way for piping more information around the home environment. As BT puts it, the idea is to 'bring us closer to natural interaction with computers by communicating in terms of colour, sound and speech'.

Designed not be out of place on a coffee table or in a corner of a kitchen, one of the prototypes is oval shaped with a clear front where the light sequences appear. Because the device will be 'always-on' it is important that it is not too obtrusive.

'This ambient device really shows the benefits of having an "always-on" link to information,' said Adam Oliver, BT Group's head of access to information. 'We set out to find a way of creating a knowledge source in an integrated but unobtrusive way, bringing everybody easy, relevant and up-to-the-minute information.'

Oliver also highlighted the usefulness of such an approach for disabled users: 'The fact that you do not need keyboard skills or the ability to use complicated software to get information from the unit is fantastic.'

BT is expecting similar devices to hit the market within 18 months.

We covered such ambient devices in our tour of BT's research campus back in June - BT previews research projects at Adastral Park.

The Media Interfaces Group, in the person of Andy Gower, showcased work with virtual- and augmented-reality systems and ambient digital devices. These are 'background' information devices that can be monitored with a very low level of interaction - out of the corner of your eye, as it were - until particular alerts or information are signalled.

For example, there was the digital plant. This multi-stemmed electronic 'plant' responds to the state of various information sources, both in terms of lights that are displayed in the buds on the end of the wire stems and also in the shape of the stem itself.

A drooping stem could indicate a falling share price or alerts could be signalled via illuminated buds - perhaps a particular light source indicating email from a particular contact. The essential point is to present an ambient interface that supplies information without the need for accessing a PC or even PDA. The incorporation of speech-and-text processing - via BT's Laureate speech processing engine - could add another dimension to device possibilities.

What are your thoughts about ambient devices signalling information by light or sound? Would you welcome the (relatively) non-intrusive communication, or would you rather check your mail directly or hear the phone ringing? Leave a comment via the link below.