Chairmen foreword

sOc-EUSAI'2005 conference

Chairmen foreword

The sOc-EUSAI’2005 conference is dedicated to one of most exciting challenge of the information society : giving access to context-aware services for everyone, everywhere and anytime. It envisions a future where we will surrounded by networked, intelligent and smart artifacts analyzing their environment, the users’ activities and needs and taking appropriate actions to enhance object to object, object to human, human to human cooperation. Such ubiquitous cooperation creates environments with ambient intelligence. Smart objects and ambient intelligence build on very recent key technologies such as embedded systems, ubiquitous computing, ubiquitous communication, cognitive systems and intelligent user interfaces. Some of these concepts are barely a decade old and sOc-EUSAI’2005 hopefully will insights in the recent and future academic and industrial research and developments in these various fields, from microelectronics and embedded software to new uses.

The sOc-EUSAI’2005 conference brings together two established series of conferences initiated by two major industrials in the field. In 2001, the first seminar on Smart Objects was organized by France Telecom in Grenoble. France. Two years later, France Telecom and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) coorganized the international conference sOc’2003 also in Grenoble. Almost synchronously, the first European Symposium on Ambient Intelligence was organised by Philips in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, in conjunction with the second open workshop of the European ITEA - AMBIENCE project. In 2004, Philips and the Eindhoven University of Technology coorganized its second edition also in Eindhoven.

The joint sOc-EUSAI’2005 conference on “Smart Objects and Ambient Intelligence” is organized jointly by the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble (INPG), the ELESA Institute (Electrical engineering, signal processing and automatic), the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Joseph Fourier University, the IMAG Institute (Computer science and applied mathematics) and the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA). We benefited from a strong support of local collectivities and national research organizations. We also received support from numerous major international industrial partners. This demonstrates if necessary the strategic importance of the themes covered by this conference. We acknowledge all our partners depicted in the front page.

The three days of keynote speeches, paper presentations, posters and demos are going to be a seminal moment for the future of smart objects and ambient intelligence. For this very special edition, we built also “special sessions” that are coordinated by guest organizers. These organizers contacted well in advance a target speaker and invited high level scientists and technologists for offering a deep and coherent insight in three hot topics that illustrate the effective development and practical use of these concepts in different applicative scenarios : RFID technology, Ambient functionality and Everyday robotics. We hope that this appetizing program will satisfy your curiosity and thank the authors.

The city of Grenoble is know as a center of high level research and competitive industry. It also attracts people because of its magnificent surroundings and beautiful mountains. We hope that your stay in Grenoble will reflect this dual necessary ingredients for a successful and memorable events : dense brainstorming and unique convivial atmosphere.

A last word to acknowledge Benoît Ponsard and Jean-Claude Girardet that took in charge most of the organization of this event. The apparent calm that presides over the event and its preparation often hides their intensive work and those of our secretariat : Carole Meyrand and Marion Crost. Isabelle Maugis did a marvelous job for promoting the event. We got a appreciable help from Frédéric Elisei and the team of student volunteers that will welcome and help the participants during the conference. We all tried to make this event as unforgettable as possible.

Enjoy sOc-EUSAI’2005 !

Gérard Bailly & James L. Crowley, chairs of the conference
Gilles Privat, chair of the scientific committee