Area-Based Collaborative Ubiquitous Work within Organizational Environments

An intelligent area integrates both Internet and Intranet software/hardware supports (from small embedded sensors to powerful and dynamic computing devices) to provide information about each artifact state (e.g., a power failure of the refrigerator) without user intervention. This technological sophistication can be achieved by means of service discovery systems, which allow services and users to discover, configure and communicate with other services and users. However, most of these systems only provide support for interaction between services and software clients. In order to cope with this limitation, the SEDINU system aims at supporting interactions between nomadic users and services managed by each organizational area. As users may move from one area to another to perform their tasks, this system also provides support for user-user interaction and cooperation under specific contexts (role, location and goals). This Web-based ubiquitous and cooperative working environment is enriched by a face recognition engine that allows to locate nomadic users.