Pervasive technology and public transport : opportunities beyond telematics

The advancements of technology in the field of public transport have been considerable. Information Technology (IT) has made the dissemination of information effortless, contributing to reduced perceived waiting time, increased sense of security, and value for money. Nevertheless, and in light of the ever more obvious widespread presence of powerful mobile devices, it seems that the use of technology may be geared towards supplementary services other than telematics. Looking at it from a passenger’s perspective, this article provides an overview of what IT-based services are currently offered in public transport and what is their assessed impact. We finalise by putting forward possible directions that future services might follow, and stress out the necessity to come up with frameworks that enable for the impact assessment on service quality and customer satisfaction.

Presents//presence: Telematics, performance and embodiment

Of giving and receiving // Of giving and taking // Of exchanges
Reciprocity // Mutuality // Expectations

A performance of liveness in which the presence of the performer is interrogated.

Drawing on Dan Graham's (1974) Two Consciousness Project, Presents//Presence plays on Object = Space relationships. Engaging with contemporary notions of thinking and consciousness, the performance plays with time - the here and now, the passage of time, time zones, and timing.

Lovers. An anniversary. Fine Dining. Distance. Skype.

Presents disrupt subject positions of audience, of performer; something happens while we are waiting for something else to happen. Through the use portable computers and hand-held (smart) devices for the capture and 'projection' of action in real time, the exploration sets out to engage with notions live and remote, absence and presence, the play of embodied transmission and live performance and the perception of absence.

Through a simulation of the simultaneous presences (performances) of performers Magda Miranda and Rea Dennis, Presents//Presence is a performative event that (re) activates live/d moments in the lives of the artists. Such presence characterizes computer time – “a permanent present, an unbounded, timeless intensity” (Virilio in Dixon 90). Such presence could also be said to characterize the intra-subjective experience of intimacy. The piece draws on the languages of live theatre, elements of autobiographical performance, inter- and intra-subjective perception, and an understanding of time as a spatial metaphor. This paper reports on the performance event Presents//Presence. In it, we outline the narrative and structural anchors that frame the piece and discuss some of the theoretical threads informing the research. The paper is accompanied by a recording of the performance that was delivered to a live audience at University of South Wales, Cardiff during the Remote Encounters conference in April 2013.

Assesing the usefulness of the ACM/IEEE-CS Computing Curricula for the design of Computer-Related Engineering Curricula, an experience in Telematics

This paper presents the rationale to build up a Telematics Engineering curriculum. Telematics is a strongly computing oriented area; then, the authors have initially intended to apply the common requirements described in the computing curricula elaborated by the ACM/EEEE-CS Joint Curriculum Task Force. This experience has revealed some problematic aspects in the ACM/IEEE-CS proposal. From the analysis of these problems, a model to guide the selection and specially the approach of the Telematics curriculum contents is proposed. This model can be easily generalized to other strongly computing oriented curricula, whose number is growing everyday

A telematics solution for the remote follow-up of malnourished children in underserved areas

The identification of malnourished children living under extreme poverty conditions in isolated areas is crucial to trigger urgent interventions like supplementary or therapeutic feeding. This work aims to strengthen the task of following-up malnourished maternal-child population in rural areas of developing countries like Nicaragua. The solution facilitates low-cost health nutritional remote monitoring to support rural communities at the point of care. Thus, the system allows medical staff to communicate with brigades, who transmit anthropometric measurements, such as weight and height of the children, from communities which are sited about 12 km. far away. A hybrid WiMAX/WiFi architecture was deployed to provide affordable communications between the isolated communities and the health center. Furthermore, a free PBX software and an open information system, installed at the health center, support WiFi based mobile communications and information management to support the care needs of maternal-child population at risk.