Intelligent Systems that Combine Pervasive Computing and Social Networking

Despite the obvious importance of pervasive computing to help the user cope with the growing number of devices and services that surround her, thus far the take-up of developments emanating from research in this area has been somewhat limited. On the other hand Social Networking Systems have developed at an extraordinary rate with widespread take-up. By bringing together these two paradigms in an integrated and seamless way one can create a Pervasive Social Networking (PSN) system that can provide the benefits of both. To assist in developing pervasive systems the notion of a Personal Smart Space was introduced. This paper extends this notion to that of a Cooperating Smart Space and the accompanying Community Interaction Space which can be used as a basis for developing a PSN. The Societies project is currently using this to develop a PSN which will be evaluated in terms of its usefulness and effectiveness in a series of field trials with real users starting in the last quarter of 2012. The largest of these will involve a cohort of students and this paper also reports briefly on preparatory work leading to the implementation of the PSN system to be used in the student trials.