Open public display networks could emerge as a new communications medium for the 21st century, but this transformation can only occur if the technology moves from its current, closed model to a new, open one.

Public digital displays are increasingly pervasive and an important enabling technology for many types of ubiquitous computing scenarios. Not only do they provide a simple and effective way of bringing digital information into our physical world, but their presence could also be a catalyst for situated interaction and the emergence of local user-generated content. This paper explores the role of presence, particularly as enabled by Bluetooth device discovery, as the driver for the system's behavior and its situational awareness.

Smart city initiatives are being promoted across the world to address major urban challenges, and they all share a common belief in the transformative power of digital technologies. However, the pace of innovation in smart cities seems to be much slower than the rapid and profoundly disruptive transformations brought about by digital innovation in many other domains. To develop new insights about the main causes behind this relatively modest success, this study provides a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on the connection between major smart city challenges and the essential properties of digital innovation. The review involved the qualitative analysis of 44 research papers reporting on smart city innovation practices and outcomes. The results characterize five major challenge categories for smart city innovation: Strategic vision; Organizational Capabilities and Agility; Technology Domestication; Ecosystem Development; and Transboundary Innovation. This study also explores the connections between these challenges and concrete digital innovation practices in smart city initiatives. The main conclusion is that current innovation practices in smart cities are not properly aligned with what the research literature commonly describes as core properties of digital innovation and that this might be a major cause behind the limited progress in smart city initiatives.

Mobile payments still remain essentially an emerging technology, seeking to fill the gap between the envisioned potential and widespread usage. In this paper, we present an integrated mobile service solution based on the near field communication (NFC) protocol that was developed under a research project called MobiPag. The most distinctive characteristic of Mobipag is its open architectural model that allows multiple partners to become part of the payment value-chain and create solutions that complement payments in many unexpected ways. We describe the Mobipag architecture and how it has been used to support a mobile payment trial. We identify a set of design lessons resulting from usage experiences associated with real-world payment situations with NFC-enabled mobile phones. Based on results from this trial, we identify a number of challenges and guidelines that may help to shape future versions of NFC-based payment systems. In particular, we highlight key challenges for the initial phases of payment deployments, where it is essential to focus on scenarios that can be identified as more feasible for early adoption. We also have identified a fundamental trade-off between the flexibility supported by the Mobipag solution and the respective implications for the payment process, particularly on the users’ mental model.