MIT's Live-in PlaceLab

A Boston Globe article and pictures and plans and overview of MIT's PlaceLab, a future home with infrastructure to track behavior of live-in volunteers. There is considerable value in establishing a place which has strong context, to allow you to experiment with behavior while controlling all of the variables. Also of interest, their collaborator: TIAX LLC, a collaborative research company. Recent newsletter and considerable detail below.

MIT Changing Places/House_n/OSBA

Autumn 2004 Newsletter

1. PlaceLab update:

The PlaceLab is up and running! Three volunteers have stayed in the PlaceLab for 10 days each. There has been great interest from the media: a two-page feature story was published in Boston Globe (See attached file: PlaceLab Globe 2 pgs.pdf) and the Discovery Channel in Canada aired a PlaceLab feature story on November 30th, 2004. The program will soon run on the Discovery Channel in the U.S. It can be viewed at:

http://www.exn.ca/video/?video=exn20041130-apartment.asx

2. Changing Homes Conference:

The Changing Homes conference, hosted by House_n and TIAX, was held on September 28th, and marked the public announcement of the opening of the PlaceLab. The PlaceLab and topics related to PlaceLab research were discussed from the consumer perspective, industry's perspective, and the academic perspective. The program of the conference can be viewed at:

http://www.changinghomes.org/program.html

3. Prototype House Initiative:

The OPEN Prototype House Initiative has been formed to develop a series of prototype homes that test a new model for the design and fabrication of highly responsive places of living. The kickoff meeting, open to all sponsors, will be held at MIT on February 1, 2005. The agenda will be to discuss and refine the scope of work for the first prototype. This initiative will bring together advanced academic research & prototyping with sophisticated commercial design & production processes. This initiative, led by the MIT House_n Open Source Building Alliance and Bensonwood Homes, will allow industrial partners to collaborate in the prototyping and deployment of new home-related materials, systems, and devices. The initiative will develop a series of prototypes, one every 18 months (approximately) through 2010. The first home is targeted for completion in the spring of 2006. If you are interested in attending this workshop or would like a description of the OPEN Prototype House Initiative, please contact Deenie Pacik, dpacik@media.mit.edu

4. House_n Research Update Workshop:

On Monday, September 27th (the day before the Changing Homes conference), House_n hosted an informal roundtable research update at MIT in the Frank Stella Room. The workshop was scheduled to coincide with a special one-day invitation-only conference on Tuesday, September 28th co-hosted by MIT House_n and our collaborator, TIAX, LLC: Changing Homes: Design + Technology for Health and Well-Being.

5. MITes update:

MITes (MIT Environmental Sensors) are portable wireless sensing devices
created by House_n for real-time data collection of human activities in
natural settings. The sensors have been designed to permit low-cost
research studies where data on the behavior of people is acquired from
actual homes. These small (approximately 1.5 x 1 x .25 inch), wireless (2.4
GHz with 100 channels) sensors can be distributed by the hundreds
throughout an environment. They include the following variations: 2-axis
acceleration (object movement events- see below), 3-axis acceleration
(body movement), magnetic reed switch (on-off, open-closed), temperature,
light level, RFID reader, and haptic output. Currently in development are
IR distance rangers and current flow versions (electrical device use).
Algorithms can then be used to study the data and automatically detect
certain activities in real-time. The tape-on sensors can be used with
computing devices such as computers, phones, or PDAs to develop and test
technology that automatically presents information based upon a person's
activities. House_n researchers are working with sponsors interested in
using the tools for their own investigations.

6. PlaceLab Subject Recruiting:

With the PlaceLab open, we need your help developing a community of
potential PlaceLab volunteers. Please forward the note below to anyone you
know who lives near Boston who might consider participation:

Help Create Technologies for Healthy Living
We are seeking individual volunteers to live in a state-of-the-art,
comfortable apartment
in Cambridge. Researchers from MIT's Department of Architecture in
collaboration with
TIAX LLC seek volunteers to participate in experiments related to the
home, such as
how to promote healthy living. Volunteers must be over 18, have a
permanent residence
in the Boston area, spend most of their time at home, and not be
employed by MIT. For
more information and to learn how you may participate, please contact
placelab-
volunteers@mit.edu OR call Jason Nawyn at 617-452-5679.

7. Current Project Updates:

The entire House_n team spent an extremely busy summer instrumenting and
testing the PlaceLab during the first two volunteer test periods.
Meanwhile, several other projects have also been moving forward.

Jason Nawyn is working on several technologies designed to motivate
behavior change, particularly in the home. He worked with Pallavi Kaushik
to extend a prototype of a sensor-driven place and event-based reminders
system ("Memento"), and he is currently extending that work to a PlaceLab
study related to proactively encouraging a healthy life balance of work,
entertainment, eating, etc.

Pallavi Kaushik has been developing data collection and visualization tools
for the PlaceLab. She is currently extending her work on "Memento" to a
system that will enable users to maintain medical and health-related
regimens by tailoring them to their individual lifestyles.

Jennifer Beaudin and Stephen Intille are working with Margie Morris of
Intel Research on applications for cognitive assessment and intervention,
including an application to help users elaborate and rehearse family
knowledge ("KinQuery"). In the process, they have been doing work to
understand what type of information people might like to track about their
lives, particularly with respect to health and well-being.

Stephen Intille has begun work on an NIH-funded project with Boston Medical
and Stanford Medical to develop a tool to automatically measure how people
get physical activity in their own homes.

Ph.D. student Emmanuel Munguia Tapia spent the summer at Intel Research in
Seattle, working on activity recognition technology for RFID technology and
ubiquitous computing. In the past few months he has dramatically extended
the capability of the MITes, and deployed them in both the PlaceLab and in
an apartment.

8. New and Retiring House_n Researchers:

Randy Rockinson and Christine Liu joined House_n this fall as first-year
masters students. Randy has a B.S. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech
and is interested in sensors and ubiquitous computing. Christine has a B.A.
in Architecture and Math from Harvard University and is interested in
technology and design. Louis Lopez and Victoria Hsu, seniors in MIT's
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Program, joined House_n as
Masters of Engineering students. Louis is working to extend the House_n
portable toolkit of sensors, and Victoria is developing a new data
visualization and annotation tool for the PlaceLab.

EECS graduate student Joyce Ho completed her M.Eng. thesis research on
creating technologies for mobile computing devices (e.g. phones) that use
activity recognition to minimize the likelihood of unwanted interruptions.
Joyce is working at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in California on,
literally, top-secret stuff.

T.J. McLeish has left House_n but continues to work closely with Kent
Larson on a new multifamily prototypical housing project planned adjacent
to the MIT campus.

9. New grants:

Stephen Intille was awarded a small pilot grant from University of North
Carolina collaborators to modify House_n technology for in-home study of
television viewing habits. Jason Nawyn and Randy Rockinson will work on the
project.

Stephen Intille was awarded a two-year grant (with Boston Medical and
Stanford Medical) from the National Cancer Institute to study "Context
Sensitive Measurement of Physical Activity. The work will use Emmanuel
Munguia Tapia's new mobile MITes and will test some of House_n algorithms
for real-time recognition of physical activity in order to develop a new
tool for physical activity health researchers.

Stephen Intille and Kent Larson were awarded a "Working Group Grant" from
the Center for the Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology
(CIMIT) to explore how the PlaceLab can be used for CIMIT/MGH/Partners
collaborative research on the home as a "healing environment."

10. Recent papers:

K Larson, S Intille, T J McLeish, J Beaudin and R E Williams. Open source
building - reinventing places of living. BT Technology Journal, October,
2004.

S. S. Intille, "A new research challenge: persuasive technology to motivate
healthy aging," Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, vol.
8, 2004.

E. M. Tapia, N. Marmasse, S. S. Intille, and K. Larson, "MITes: Wireless
portable sensors for studying behavior," in Proceedings of Extended
Abstracts Ubicomp 2004: Ubiquitous Computing, 2004.

J. Ho. Interruptions: Using Activity Transitions to Trigger Proactive
Messages. M.Eng. Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
2004.

J. Beaudin, S. Intille, and E. Munguia Tapia. Lessons Learned Using
Ubiquitous Sensors for Data Collection in Real Homes. Proceedings of
Extended Abstracts: CHI 2004 Connect: Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems, ACM Press, April, 2004.

L. Bao and S.S. Intille. Activity Recognition from User-Annotated
Acceleration Data, Proceedings of Pervasive 2004: the Second International
Conference on Pervasive Computing, Springer, April, 2004.

E. Munguia Tapia, S.S. Intille, and K. Larson. Activity Recognition in the
Home Using Simple and Ubiquitous Sensors, Proceedings of Pervasive 2004:
the Second International Conference on Pervasive Computing, Springer,
April, 2004.

S.S. Intille, L. Bao, E. Munguia Tapia, and J. Rondoni. Acquiring In Situ
Training Data for Context-Aware Ubiquitous Computing Applications,
Proceedings of CHI 2004 Connect: Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems, ACM Press, April, 2004.

Dr. Kenneth Wacks, "Open Source Building Alliance Standards," CABA Home and
Building Automation Quarterly, Winter 2003.

11. The Changing Places Consortium/House_n/OSBA, would like to thank the
following organizations.

Corporate and Strategic Research Partners:
BT
Hewlett-Packard Company
Information and Communications University
The LEGO Group
MasterCard International
Motorola, Inc.
Samsung Electronics Co., LTD.
Swatch AG
Telmex

Sponsors:
GriffnerHaus
Salt River Project
Samsung Housing
Proctor and Gamble

Partners:
Boston Medical Center
Center for the Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technologies (CIMIT)
Harvard School of Public Health
IBM Research
Intel Research Proactive Health Group
TIAX, LLC
University of North Carolina School of Public Health

Awards:
Center for the Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technologies (CIMIT)
HUD
IBM
Intel
National Science Foundation
NIH
University of North Carolina School of Public Health

Equipment Donors:
Avocent
Denicomp Systems
FitSense Technology
Fluke Networks
Intel
Lennox
Lightolier
Lutron
Minolta
Molex
OnQ Technology
Platinum Tools
Sony
Superior Essex
Velcro
ViewCast
Whirlpool
Ximeta

Thanks for helping to make our research possible!

CONTACT US:

Deenie Pacik
Consortium Program Coordinator
Changing Places/OSBA
(Joint Media Lab + Department of Architecture Consortium)
617-452-5676, dpacik@media.mit.edu

Kent Larson
Director, Changing Places/OSBA
(Joint Media Lab + Department of Architecture Consortium)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Stephen Intille
Technology Director, Changing Places/OSBA
(Joint Media Lab + Department of Architecture Consortium)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The prospectus and documents describing current efforts can be downloaded
at:

http://architecture.mit.edu/house_n/web/publications/BlueFolder.zip

Comments

[Christian Schwarz Lausten]

That's interesting. I have been following Philips HomeLab's experiments with something very much alike. A usability testhome-facility for their Ambient Intelligence products.

There's a pdf describing it right here

Also, check out Philips HomeLab site

[Christian Schwarz Lausten]

Hmm, seems like I'm not the html hacker I was hoping for... Anyway, here goes the easy way:

365 days’Ambient Intelligence research in HomeLab:

http://www.research.philips.com/technologies/misc/homelab/downloads/homelab_365.pdf

And the Philips Homelab site is: http://www.research.philips.com/technologies/misc/homelab/

[Franz]

Christian,

Thanks for the URLs ... we visited Philips Homelab last year and it is an impressive effort. Particularly interesting were efforts by some interns who were working specific in-home technology contexts. Welcome to our little blog effort here, you will have to tell us more about your Innovation Lab in Blog posts, as sadly I do not read Danish.