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A Framework for Real Objects in Physical Spaces


Computing devices are becoming smaller, cheaper, and ubiquitous. Soon there will be orders of magnitude more computers than people on the planet. This Malthusian fact demands fundamental changes in the way
humans and computers interact. One of the revolutions will be the evolution of "smart spaces", environments which intelligently monitor and manage the virtual and physical objects of the space, including
the people, in order to create new and better human experiences.

What makes "smart" spaces smart is the ability to interact with "real" objects (as opposed to digital objects).  This interaction requires sensing and tracking physical objects, and also will require adequate models of the objects of interest.  This project develops a general framework for designing and implementing this aspect of a "smart" space.  The framework is applied in an experiment using the University of Illinois Library as the example environment.