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Although many different types of technologies for information systems have evolved over the last decades (such as databases, video systems, the Internet and mobile telecommunication), the integration of these technologies is just in its infancy and has the potential to introduce ”intelligent” systems. The CANDELA project, which is part of the European ITEA program, focuses on the integration of video content analysis in combination with networked delivery and storage technologies. To unleash the full potential of such integration, adaptive video-content analysis and retrieval techniques are being explored by developing several pilot applications.

In a mixed reality installation, a variety of technologies is integrated such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and animated virtual agents and robotic agents. One of the main challenges is how to design and implement a mixed reality installation that integrates a heterogeneous array of sensors and actuators, immersive interactive environments into aware system that will engage the user, providing a meaningful experience. In this paper we address the problems of building a CAVE environment in mixed reality installations, and share our experience in using a game engine as the driver for the CAVE, and in interfacing the game engine with sensors, actuators and input devices.

We present two designs in the area of Internet of Things, utilizing an ontology-driven platform, namely Smart-M3, to connect domestic objects in the physical world to the information world, for coaching the behavior or raising the awareness in domestic energy consumption. The concept and architecture of Smart-M3 are introduced, in which the domestic objects are knowledge processors connected to the semantic information broker that contains the ontologies, using a blackboard design pattern and semantic web technologies, enabling the interoperability among both digital and physical entities. Two designs based on Smart-M3 are presented, as examples for coaching with and learning from the Internet of Things. Although both designs are in the area of domestic energy consumption, they can be seen as good starting points towards broader areas of ubiquitous learning with the Internet of Things.

In this paper we present the design of an application that helps people with expressive aphasia to express their feelings and share information through digital photographs. Our design is based on feedback from the therapist and persons with aphasia and their partners. The preliminary prototypes are evaluated with persons with aphasia and their partners. The concept is well accepted by the aphasics and it could be easily used during therapy and post-therapy period.

The ICT landscape is developing into a highly-interactive distributed environment in which people interact with multiple devices (e.g. portable devices such as mobile phones and home equipment such as TV’s) and multiple applications (e.g. computer programs such as Web browsers and dedicated Web services) [1]. Globally, the industry is being driven by the shift away from old models - from physical space to digital space. New methods emerge for getting content such as TV programs via the Web. Almost half of the people want to watch TV content on their PC’s; they want to make a bridge between a TV and a PC, perhaps even sitting in a home office [2]. The information overload is enormous and the content presented is hardly adapted to the prior knowledge, to the preferences and to the current situation of the user.

The main objective of the CHIP project is to demonstrate how Semantic Web technologies can be deployed to provide personalized access to digital museum collections. We illustrate our approach with the digital database ARIA of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. For the semantic enrichment of the Rijksmuseum ARIA database we collaborated with the CATCH STITCH project to produce mappings to Iconclass, and with the MultimediaN E-culture project to produce the RDF/OWL of the ARIA and Adlib databases. The main focus of CHIP is on exploring the potential of applying adaptation techniques to provide personalized experience for the museum visitors both on the Web site and in the museum.