Is Ambient Intelligence doomed to fail? Design Guidelines for bridging the Digital Divide in the Ambient Intelligence Society

The aim of this paper is to specify design guidelines for the sustainable development of Ambient Intelligence (AmI). AmI lies at the core of the European research policy for Information Society Technologies (IST) and seeks to empower individuals to improve their capability to participate in society. We want to address the issue of the digital divide in the emerging Ambient Intelligence Society. AmI is the next step in the development of information and communication technologies. It can be seen as the extension of the web into the physical world, adding intelligence, interactivity and connectivity to our everyday environments. In the visions of AmI it is often implied or even seen as inherent in this technology that it will bridge the digital divide and provide access for all in an inclusive AmI Society. Already existing technologies like Wireless LANs can be seen as the first step towards a wide diffusion of society with AmI technologies. This process shows that there is a possibility for the emergence of a digital divide even with the use of ambient technologies. Despite the ubiquity of WLAN coverage there is no access for all due to the prohibitive connectionand hardware costs and the lack of usability. The expansion of AmI technologies has the potential to even aggravate this situation, through barriers to entry, built up for example by registration fees or absence of computer literacy. Depending on how AmI is socially designed and applied it can foster inclusion or exclusion.