pd-net - Towards Future Pervasive Display Networks

The PD-NET project aims to lay the scientific foundations for a new form of communications medium with the same potential impact on society as radio, television and the Internet. The goal is to explore the scientific challenges and to assess the new technologies required to enable the emergence of large scale networks of pervasive public displays and associated sensors. This display network will be designed and implemented to be open to applications and content from many sources and thus provide the foundation for work on a new global communications medium for information access and interaction. The project will ensure that Europe is in the best possible position to benefit from this new medium and that this emerging technology will be compatible with European values and lifestyle. The project is highly innovative, no such pervasive display networks exist today and their emergence will represent a radical transformation in the way we think about information dissemination in public spaces; it is high risk, numerous technical and societal challenges need to be addressed before pervasive display networks are possible; and potentially high pay-off, if successful, the project will pioneer a new research area and provide the foundations for a new communications medium that offers entirely new opportunities for economic activity and a means to radically change public spaces. At the heart of this transformation is the move from today´s environments in which information is pushed to passers-by in the form of adverts to spaces that can utilize public displays and ambient intelligence to reflect the hopes, aspirations and interests of its occupants using content and applications created anywhere in a global network.