Almende is a Dutch research company specialized in information and communication technologies. Central to all our research is the concept of self-organization.
We believe that computer systems and technology should support people in performing their professional tasks and organizing their daily lives. This means that ICT should learn to work for and with people, according to their individual wishes and demands.
Within CRISP, Almende participates in the project I-PE: Intelligent Play Environments to stimulate social and physical activities. The project addresses two topics that are very central to Almende's own research aims: it investigates novel ways to allow people and technology to interact with each other, and it experiments with emergent behaviour, developing a game that has no prior set rules but which reacts and adapts to each player.
Technologically, Almende's interest in this project lies in the field of sensing and actuating. In order to become truly inviting and challenging, the play environment should be able to interpret users' activities and respond intelligently. Therefore, the system has to collect and store large amounts of sensor data from various types of sensors, and interpret this aggregate data in order to distil meaningful information.
Almende believes that the biggest merits of the I-PE project lie in the domains of health care and serious gaming. If we can truly 'sense' people's activities, reactions and even 'state of mind', we will be able to positively influence people's behaviour. This way, we can stimulate healthy actions, for instance for elderly people, or people with an addiction or an illness.
Such persuasive technology could radically change the way that coaching apps work. In the future, people will not only be learning from technology, but technology will also be able to improve itself, so it can help and coach us in ever more far-reaching ways.
We believe that computer systems and technology should support people in performing their professional tasks and organizing their daily lives. This means that ICT should learn to work for and with people, according to their individual wishes and demands.
Within CRISP, Almende participates in the project I-PE: Intelligent Play Environments to stimulate social and physical activities. The project addresses two topics that are very central to Almende's own research aims: it investigates novel ways to allow people and technology to interact with each other, and it experiments with emergent behaviour, developing a game that has no prior set rules but which reacts and adapts to each player.
Technologically, Almende's interest in this project lies in the field of sensing and actuating. In order to become truly inviting and challenging, the play environment should be able to interpret users' activities and respond intelligently. Therefore, the system has to collect and store large amounts of sensor data from various types of sensors, and interpret this aggregate data in order to distil meaningful information.
Almende believes that the biggest merits of the I-PE project lie in the domains of health care and serious gaming. If we can truly 'sense' people's activities, reactions and even 'state of mind', we will be able to positively influence people's behaviour. This way, we can stimulate healthy actions, for instance for elderly people, or people with an addiction or an illness.
Such persuasive technology could radically change the way that coaching apps work. In the future, people will not only be learning from technology, but technology will also be able to improve itself, so it can help and coach us in ever more far-reaching ways.