News
Internships / Graduate Projects at Sense
At Sense we currently have three internships/graduate projects for computer science students.
If you have an interest in large scale distributed systems we invite you to take a look at the descriptions.
Feel free to email us or call our office at 010-3030600 and ask for Steven Mulder for more information.
Sense is Hiring Developers
We are looking for two developers (front-end and back-end) to join our team. They will help maintain and improve our CommonSense platform, and develop new (mobile) applications.
Think you are up for it? Take a look at the job descriptions.
Sense Joins DevLab
As of the 1st of January, Sense Observation Systems is officially a member of DevLab. DevLab is a cooperation of 13 technology companies that pool their resources to facilitate R&D.
DevLab is also the birth place of the MyriaNed wireless sensor network platform, which Sense makes extensive use of.
Sense's mother company, Almende, is one of the founding members of DevLab. Sense's membership is therefor mainly a formality, as much cooperation was already taking place.
With this strategic cooperation, the connection between Sense and DevLab becomes official. Sense will work with DevLab on R&D in areas such as (wireless) sensor networks, sensors and pattern recognition, and application domains such as climate monitoring and indoor tracing and tracing.
DevLab Café at Sense
"An informal gathering with demonstrations, presentations, drinks and a byte." That is the description of the monthly DevLab Café. On Friday 28 October, the DevLab Café was held right here at Sense.
DevLab is a group of 12 SME's (small and medium enterprises) that work together on technological research and innovation. Every last Friday of the month, they organize a DevLab Café, where they gather to share the latest developments and experiences.
Latest developments at Sense
It has been approximately half a year since Sense disentangled from its mother company Almende to stand on its own feet at a new location. It was therefore a good occasion to show the other DevLab partners 'where we are at'. Much of the Café was devoted to developments at Sense.
In these six months, the 'Sensei' have been very busy working on CommonSense and several other projects. We've also turned the new office into a testing environment, with wireless sensors scattered all through the building.
Experiments and business developments
Freek van Polen, one of Sense's researchers, presented the results of an experiment which monitored the climate in greenhouses. Freek showed how data was gathered by nearly 100 nodes deployed in a tomato-greenhouse, measuring temperature, humidity, illumination and CO2 levels.
Managing Director Jan Peter Larsen closed the Café by elaborating about the activities and business goals of Sense Observation System. After his presentation, Jan Peter gave a brief demonstration of the cloud-based CommonSense Platform, which is used by Sense for interpreting, collecting and sharing of sensor data.
The only external presentation was held by Hugo Peeters, student at TU Delft, who presented the results of his master thesis. He worked on the performance of the flapping wings of a Micro Air Vehicle.
Next DevLab Café
For more information about DevLab and their projects, visit their website www.devlab.nl. There you will also find the location of the next DevLab Café on Friday 25 November.
After a couple of drinks, he DevLab'ers try their hand at the Sense foosball table.
Internship: Remotely Accessible WSN
Sense is looking for a motivated student (MSc- or advanced BSc-level) in computer science or a related field, to carry out an internship on the topic "Remotely Accessible WSN".
During the internship, you will be working on the MyriaNed WSN platform, which was developed by DevLab, a group of innovative businesses that Sense is part of. You will develop a set of tools to make a WSN installation remotely accessible for maintenance and diagnosis.
The internship will take place partly at Sense in Rotterdam, and partly at DevLab in Eindhoven.
TED Praises “Interactive Entrance”
The international TED community highlighted the "interactive building blocks logo" at TEDxYouth as one of 10 most exciting innovations at a TEDx event.
The "interactive entrance" was designed and made by students from the Hogeschool Rotterdam, for their Innovation Lab project "Design for Human Technology". Sense provided the required sensors, and some tech support.
Congratulations guys!
Read what some of the students wrote about their project:
Sensor Lab at Hogeschool Rotterdam
Starting this semester, students from the Hogeschool Rotterdam will be able to show off their talent and creativity, working with sensors and CommonSense.
In cooperation with Sense, the knowledge circle "Human Centered ICT" initiated SensorLab, a special laboratory where students from the department of Communications, Media and ICT can work with real sensors and sensor data.
Sense will provide some hardware (MyriaNed sensornodes), the software (the CommonSense platform for collecting, analysing and sharing data) and Sense researchers to act as lecturer or tutor. With these basic tools, the students will be free to design and implement all the innovative, practical or creative installations and applications that they can think of.
We hope to show you some exiting results by the end of the semester!
Sense App Available on iPhone
Good news for all enthousiastic Apple fans and iPhone users: we have published the Sense Platform App for iPhone in the Apple App Store.
The iPhone app has the same functionality as the Android version. Just download the App, login or get a free account, and get going! The App runs in the background and will collect all your sensor data from your iPhone.
Then go to the CommonSense website and see what you've been up to! You can create states, and share them with family, friends or colleagues.
You can find the App quickly by scanning this QR code.
New Website for Developers Community
Sense has returned from summer holidays with a brand new website! We've not only changed the look and feel, but we've also added some nifty new features to start building a developers community around CommonSense.
Developers can now find the full CommonSense API documentation right here on the Sense website. You can read through the whole thing at your leasure, or play around with it using the API Console.
Sense would like to invite developers to the User Forum to aks questions, offer feedback, make bug reports, or show off their own work.
There are two ways of approaching the Sense user forum. There is of course the traditional messaging board, under 'Forums'. Also, forum threads are directly linked to chapters in the API documentation. Browsing through the API Documentation, you can view and respond to the latest comments about that chapter, at the bottom of the page.
Feedback
We're very curious to know what you think about the new website, the API and CommonSense itself. So don't hesitate to post your feedback on our brand new forum!
New: Sense Desktop Sensor
Sense presents a new way of monitoring your status: the Sense Desktop Sensor. The Desktop Sensor is a simple application that monitors your PC usage and shares this information with CommonSense. The application runs in the background, so it will not interrupt regular tasks.
Share your status and create alerts
Information from the Desktop Sensor can be used in CommonSense to create very accurate status-updates; busy, idle, away, working but available, etc. You can share information with groups of other Sense users, such as friends or colleagues. Only you decide which information is private and which data may be shared, and if you want to share data anonymously or with some personal details.
In CommonSense, you can combine data from different sensors, making it possible to create alerts for specific situations. How about a security alert whenever your PC is being used, even though you are not in the room?
Availability:
The current version of the Sense Desktop Sensor monitors: keyboard, mouse and user activity, active windows, and visited websites and URLs. The applications is currently only available for Windows (XP and higher).
Business Case Sense and Vestia
Housing corporation Vestia and Sense Observation Systems have agreed to work together on a new business case. Together, they will investigate possible applications of cutting-edge sensor technology in building management.
Possible applications include smart climate control, more reliable alarm systems, and indoor tracking and tracing. By combining information from motion sensors, heat sensors and calendars, for instance, Sense could contribute to energy efficiency in office buildings, without infringing on comfort.
Vestia is one of the leading housing corporations in South-West Holland, and maintains over 70,000 private houses and 5000 commercial buildings.
Sense previously did a successful pilot in a Vestia building for elderly people. A wireless sensor network provided the housing corporation with very detailed information about the temperatures in different areas. The new joint business case will move beyond merely gathering data, and will most likely include actuation within the network.
Sense Moves Into New Office
Sense @ Sense of Contact 2011
Naturally, Sense Observation Systems is present at this year's Sense of Contact conference. Sense will demonstrate its latest research results on the subject of pattern recognition and learning mechanisms for large sets of sensor data.
The theme of this year's conference is "Sensors & Nature". Talks focus on the inspiration that nature offers for designing sensor applications.
The 13th edition of the conference in Zeist will be held on Thursday 7 April, and brings together researchers, developers and industry partners in the field of sensor technology. To visit the conference, register here.
Jan Peter Larsen New Managing Director
Jan Peter Larsen has been officially instated as the new managing director for Sense Observation Systems. Larsen is no stranger to Sense. For the past ten years, he worked for Sense's 'mother company' Almende as research manager. In that capacity, he has long been involved with research into wireless sensor networks and context awareness, which lead to the founding of Sense Observation Systems.
As managing director, Jan Peter Larsen will be responsible for leading Sense through its expected growth spurt. Some exciting new developments are already underway. This spring, Sense will move into a new, larger office. Further, some new projects and collaborations with project partners are set to go. The ultimate goal this year will be to launch the fully functional CommonSense to the general public, and to gather a large community of people using and contributing to CommonSense through various sensors and smartphone apps.
“Opening up the WSN” at EWSN 2011
A room, some twenty MyriaNed sensornodes, and a couple of smartphones. At the 8th European Conference on Wireless Sensor Networks (EWSN 2011), Sense will show how to combine these items to regulate the climate inside your home or office. The point of the demo is to show that we can now easily integrate external devices into a WSN, and interact with the network with any smartphone.
For this demonstration, the WSN will collect data on temperature, humidity and ambient light. Smartphones can be connected to the network via Bluetooth, or by physiclly connecting the phone to an individual node.
On the smartphone, sensor data from the network will be visualized. Also, the phones can be used to interact with the network, in this case by switching the lights on and off. In a real-world situation, a user would be able to adjust the entire indoor climate to his wishes.
EWSN is an academic conference focusing on the latest research in the field of WSN. This year's conference will be held in Bonn, Germany, from 23 to 25 February.
Sense Joins Forces with Ecare
Sense Observation Systems has entered into a collaboration with Ecare, a software developer in the health care sector. Sense will develop a smartphone app for home care professionals that will be integrated into Ecare software.
Ecare's biggest customer is Buurtzorg, a booming, innovative home care organization. Buurtzorg's mission is to allow care professionals to carry out their central (care-related) tasks, without the hassle of bureaucracy and administration.
Sense will provide the contextual awareness that will get rid of many administrative tasks. The smartphone app will use GPS and mobile networks to determine where the care givers are and to provide automated time registration. Also, upon arrival at a client's home, care givers will receive messages with relevant information from the colleague who was there last.
Interactive Entrance @ TEDx Youth
For the first TEDx Youth event held in The Netherlands, Sense delivered the technology to create an "interactive entrance experience". Students from the Hogeschool Rotterdam had asked for help in creating a challenging and surprising experience with sensors.
TEDx Youth is a spin-off from the famous American conference TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design). On 20 November, TEDx Youth was held in science center Nemo in Amsterdam: a special conference for creative minds under 18. To challenge these youths from the very start, a special "entrance experience" was designed by the students from Rotterdam.
An enormous TEDx logo was built out of Styrofoam and chopped into pieces. Each piece was equipped with a wireless sensor node and assigned to a visitor. Upon entrance, visitors were given 'their' building block and invited to play around with it.
On large screens, other visitors could see who just entered, and what he or she was doing with their building block. Shaking the block for instance made their picture on the screen move and grow larger. Finding out together what these building blocks could do turned out to be a great ice breaker for the nervous young visitors.
For an impression of the complete set-up, watch this video compilation.
Health Monitoring with CommonSense
Sense is integrating telemedicine into CommonSense. The Sense Platform smartphone app now supports several modern biomedical sensors. Information from such sensors – e.g. your heart rate, blood glucose levels, body fat percentage – is sent via Bluetooth and can be automatically stored in your CommonSense.
Sense aims to improve context awareness in health care by collecting all kinds of (biomedical) sensor data in CommonSense. Through CommonSense it's very easy for you, your family and your doctor to get a complete overview of your health situation. In the near future, CommonSense will be able to send out alerts in case of abnormal or worrisome readings.
The Sense Platform supports the following external sensors:
Zephyr Bio-Harness (heart rate, respiration, skin temperature, acceleration)
Zephyr HxM (heart rate, speed, distance traveled)
MyGlucoHealth (blood glucose)
Tanita Body Composition Monitor (weight, body fat %, body water %, basal metabolic rate, metabolic age, bone mass, muscle mass, visceral fat rating)
More devices, such as blood oxygen and blood pressure sensors will be added soon.
Test Case in Vestia Building
In July, Sense installed a wireless sensor network in a housing complex in Delfgauw, owned by the Vestia housing association. Residents complained about temperatures rising up to 40 degrees Celsius in the glass-roofed atrium in summer. Sense's WSN collects detailed data and visualizes them in the CommonSense database, to give Vestia better insight into the actual climate in the building.
For this two-month trial, twenty MyriaNed nodes were installed on each floor. The temperature can be followed in real-time by building managers by logging onto CommonSense. In the future, the system might be implemented to register movement, light and smoke as well, and to regulate the internal climate by switching on the air conditioning or opening windows.
Read more about this test case in an article on Kennislink.nl (in Dutch).
Bits&Chips magazine devoted attention to sensor networks in the September issue. Read an article about Sense's test case in Delfgauw, or about the MyriaNed technology (both articles are in Dutch).
CommonSense Website Launched
Sense has reached some exciting landmarks concerning the Sense App. More than one thousand Android-users have already downloaded the Sense Platform App to their smartphone. Together, they have collected over a million entries in the CommonSense database.
And now, users can also view their own sensor data on the newly launched CommonSense website: common.sense-os.nl. Again, like the Sense App itself, CommonSense is still very much under construction. For now, users can access visualizations of their own smartphone's sensor data,such as sound, position and orientation.
The Sense developers are working hard on CommonSense, and new features will be added soon. Users will be able to share their sensor data with the people they specify. In the future, CommonSense will learn to interpret your behavior, based on the collected sensor data. To this purpose, more pop-up questions will be added, so you can help CommonSense learn about you.