Kaisa Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila (Tampere University of Technology) examines in her research project how social interaction between people in the same space can be supported through social mobile devices. Social mobile devices are smartphones that are capable of making initiatives for interaction between people based on knowledge of the context and user profiles. This study is within the field of TIVIT Oy.

CoSMO will research and develop new interaction techniques that help the users to gain positive user experiences relating to cloud services available on mobile devices in social situations. The available mobile services are constructed on cloud technologies, and the context-aware mobile devices enable these new types of interactions based on e.g. people’s body language. The study examines the users’ needs for and experiences with social interaction where the devices are active parties. A prototype will be developed during the project and evaluated with the end users.

The result will be knowledge about this new form of social interaction supported by mobile technology, as well as about the acceptability of this kind of social interaction.

The project will be implemented at TUT as a collaborative project between Professor Kaisa Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila and Professor Tommi Mikkonen. In addition to the Cloud Software programme, the project will co-operate with Tivit’s Internet of Things and Services programmes.

The Academy of Finland allocated funds of €8 million for research conducted at the strategic centres for science, technology and innovation (SHOKs). The funding is allocated to six research consortiums and eight research projects. In total 106 applications were received, of which 28 were consortium applications and 41 individual projects.

The research projects that received funding are related to the areas of specialism of all six SHOK centres: Energy and the Environment CLEEN Oy, Bioeconomy FIBIC Oy, Metals and Engineering FIMECC Oy, Built Environment RYM Oy, Health and Wellbeing SalWe Oy and Research into the Information and Communication Industry TIVIT Oy.