A novel system for the location of people in an office environment is described. Members of staff wear badges that transmit signals providing information about their location to a centralized location service, through a network of sensors. The paper also examines alternative location techniques, system design issues and applications, particularly relating to telephone call routing. Location systems raise concerns about the privacy of an individual and these issues are also addressed.

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The role of computers in the modern office has divided our activities between virtual interactions in the realm of the computer and physical interactions with real objects within the traditional office infrastructure. This paper extends previous work that has attempted to bridge this gap, to connect physical objects with virtual representations or computational functionality, via various types of tags. We discuss a variety of scenarios we have implemented using a novel combination of inexpensive, unobtrusive and easy to use RFID tags, tag readers, portable computers and wireless networking. This novel combination demonstrates the utility of invisibly, seamlessly and portably linking physical objects to networked electronic services and actions that are naturally associated with their form.

This paper reports on the design and use of tactile user interfaces embedded within or wrapped around the devices that they control. We discuss three different interaction prototypes that we built These interfaces were embedded onto two handheld devices of dramatically different form factors. We describe the design and implementation challenges, and user feedback and reactions to these prototypes. Implications for future design in the area of manipulative or haptic user interfaces are highlighted.