Big data is the new buzzword of computer professionals. Governments and industry are increasingly looking to find benefits from exploring immense data sets using new powerful tools. Large amounts of data are generated through our daily activities: commuting, eating lunch, using mobile phones, and reading the bedtime story to the children. In a truly democratized society we should have access to the data we generate along with the tools needed to gain insight. Consequently, there is an emerging need for aggregating data from different sources and presenting it in forms that will make it accessible for different stakeholders within social entities pervasive computing systems will soon be required to provide opportunities for users to rapidly explore big data in ad-hoc casual settings.

This work focuses on how we can transform everyday spaces into data-rich environments where citizens can interactively explore data sets. Specifically, this work will investigate how we can transform table surfaces into interactive spaces by augmenting currently available mobile devices. Using multiple mobile devices for one and many users will be the focal theme and new interaction techniques are explored.

The project is build on past research from the t2i Interaction Laboratory and look for new sensing techniques, communication protocols and navigation patterns.