Social networking for pervasive adaptation

As technology progresses, we are seeing increasing numbers of small devices that have the capability to store, process and forward information in our everyday physical environments. Increasingly, this is opening up the opportunity to generate, collect and communicate new knowledge and information in diverse aspects of human life. However this raises significant challenges for communication and content acquisition, as new levels of flexibility, adaptation and dynamism are required. In particular, the traditional notion of always-on end-to-end network connectivity becomes inappropriate, and radical rethinking is necessary. The EU FET project Social Networking for Pervasive Adaptation (SOCIALNETS) seeks to overcome these challenges by understanding, modelling and exploiting the key characteristics that enable humans to adapt and exhibit agility beyond other species. Through developing the capacity for devices to socially network, we believe that there is significant potential to facilitate highly effective pervasive communication and content provision.