NRC-TR-2006-002 “ iTouch : RFID Middleware for Boosting Connectivity & Intuitive User Interaction in Smart Spaces ”

The fusion of interaction and discovery technologies can facilitate easy, intuitive and impromptu access to networked entities by users without the need for significant administrative overhead. Due to mobility, complex connectivity and small user interfaces, traditional service discovery methods fail to meet the demands placed by such environments. This report presents a proof-of-concept design and implementation on how NFC-enhanced mobile devices can enable intuitive service discovery by nonexpert users in smart environments through simple gestures such as touch. With this new paradigm, physical space becomes an extension of the traditional GUI. An extensible RFID tag record is presented that can be utilised in a variety of scenarios. The technical realisation uses the UPnP framework for service discovery. The step-by-step process of service discovery and user interaction is described for three demo use cases.