XPlaces: An Open Framework to Support the Digital Living at Home

In this paper we describe our research in the design and evaluation of novel interaction techniques for pervasive computer technology at home. We particularly focus on supporting every day life by the means of an open source, multi-platform framework called XPlaces (extensible Places) designed to enable interactive applications for several environments. Its main aim is to give to the ambient the role of a medium able to hide technological complexity implicit in everyday objects and to make easier people activities encouraging interaction with services and applications. It is primarily concerned with the human aspects of ubiquitous computing, applied to enhance the possible interactions between people and the technologies blended with an ambient. This paper is organized as follows: first we present the idea and the motivation behind the framework. Then, the architecture and the models for interaction are described, followed by integration issues of the current XPlaces specification. Finally we discuss some observation and conclusions.