This article argues that smart grid technologies enable policy‐makers and communities to successfully manage enduring energy policy concerns. It defines what ‘smart’ energy technologies, grids and policies mean, and then evaluates how the smart grid can enable policy‐makers to respond to an emerging energy ‘trilemma’. Drawing on case studies from the United States, the article suggests that the...

Smart environments integrate Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into devices, vehicles, buildings and cities to offer an increased quality of life, energy efficiency and economical sustainability. In this perspective, the individual has a core role and so has networking, which enables such entities to cooperate. However, the huge amount of sensitive data, social aspects and the mi...

The main goals of smart metering are the reduction of costs, energy and CO2 by the provision of actual metering information to the providers and the customer. They allow for flexible possibilities to influence the customers’ energy consumption behavior and to adapt dynamically the power generation and distribution to the requested energy by smart grids. Metering devices are under control of gov...

Understanding the stakeholder’s needs, particularly the end-user’s need is important when designing and developing a critical infrastructure like power grid. Smart metering systems are considered as a vital element in grid modernisation projects. It provides the utility with a range of opportunities to improve their business. The benefits to other market parties are also clear. But the resident...

Smart environments integrate a multitude of different device ensembles and aim to facilitate proactive assistance in multi-display scenarios. However, the integration of existing software, especially visualization systems, to take advantage of these novel capabilities is still a challenging task. In this paper we present a smart view management concept for an integration that combines and displ...

The smart card has a microprocessor or a memory chip embedded in a plastic card. It has been in wide use in Europe and Japan for payment, entry into buildings and computer systems, and storage and access of special types of information. In the US, despite efforts by the credit card industry, the smart card has not been nearly as widely adopted as in Europe and Japan. In this article, we will re...

Smart devices in combination with other digital tools have occupied the cities transforming citizens’ urban experience. People are connected any time and anywhere with their global identities changing their relation to the local. People live in glocalities, where the local and the global co-exists. Glocalities are unique and constantly changing in a lifelong-learning process in which the citize...

In a given smart meeting room, several users are supposed to cooperate together while employing static and dynamic heterogeneous devices. The goal of such environments is to deliver proper assistance to the users while performing their tasks. Thus, task models are an appropriate starting point for those environments. Those models give the developers the opportunity to focus on the users and the...