Applications -- Social, Economic, and Ethical Implications of Ambient Intelligence and Ubiquitous Computing -- Integrated Microelectronics for Smart Textiles -- Ambient Intelligence Research in HomeLab: Engineering the User Experience -- How Ambient Intelligence will Improve Habitability and Energy Efficiency in Buildings -- System Design and Architecture -- Networked Infomechanical Systems (NIMS) for Ambient Intelligence -- TinyOS: An Operating System for Sensor Networks -- A Service-Based Universal Application Interface for Ad Hoc Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks -- Locationing and Timing Synchronization Services in Ambient Intelligence Networks -- Security for Ambient Intelligent Systems -- Low-Cost Wireless Control-Networks in Smart Environments -- Components and Technologies -- Ambient Intelligence Technology: An Overview -- Powering Ambient Intelligent Networks -- Ultra-Low Power Integrated Wireless Nodes for Sensor and Actuator Networks -- Packaging Challenges in Miniaturization -- Algorithms in Ambient Intelligence.

Ambient intelligence is the vision of a technology that will become invisibly embedded in our natural surroundings, present whenever we need it, enabled by simple and effortless interactions, attuned to all our senses, adaptive to users and context-sensitive, and autonomous. High-quality information access and personalized content must be available to everybody, anywhere, and at any time. This book addresses ambient intelligence used to support human contacts and accompany an individual's path through the complicated modern world. From the technical standpoint, distributed electronic intelligence is addressed as hardware vanishing into the background. Devices used for ambient intelligence are small, low-power, low weight, and (very importantly) low-cost; they collaborate or interact with each other; and they are redundant and error-tolerant. This means that the failure of one device will not cause failure of the whole system. Since wired connections often do not exist, radio methods will play an important role for data transfer. This book addresses various aspects of ambient intelligence, from applications that are imminent since they use essentially existing technologies, to ambitious ideas whose realization is still far away, due to major unsolved technical challenges.