Showing papers on "Context awareness published in 2001"

Understanding and Using Context

Abstract: Context is a poorly used source of information in our computing environments. As a result, we have an impoverished understanding of what context is and how it can be used. In this paper, we provide an operational definition of context and discuss the different ways in which context can be used by context-aware applications. We also present the Context Toolkit, an architecture that supports the building of these context-aware applications. We discuss the features and abstractions in the toolkit that make the task of building applications easier. Finally, we introduce a new abstraction, a situation which we believe will provide additional support to application designers.

At Home with Ubiquitous Computing: Seven Challenges

Abstract: The smart home offers a new opportunity to augment people's lives with ubiquitous computing technology that provides increased communications, awareness, and functionality. Recently, a number of trends have increased the likelihood that the aware home can soon become a reality. We examine a number of challenges from the technical, social, and pragmatic domains that we feel must be overcome before the vision of the smart home, posited by ubiquitous computing research, can become a reality. Our hope in raising these issues is to create a conversation among researchers in the varied disciplines that make up ubiquitous computing. In particular, we hope to raise awareness of the existing literature on the adoption, use, and history of domestic technologies, as well as the use of situated studies, and the benefits that these can bring to bear on the design and evaluation of technologies for the home

An infrastructure approach to context-aware computing

Abstract: The Context Toolkit (Dey, Abowd, and Salber, 2001 [this special issue]) is only one of many possible architectures for supporting context-aware applications. In this essay, we look at the tradeoffs involved with a service infrastructure approach to context-aware computing. We describe the advantages that a service infrastructure for context awareness has over other approaches, outline some of the core technical challenges that must be addressed before such an infrastructure can be built, and point out promising research directions for overcoming these challenges.

Real-time analysis of data from many sensors with neural networks

Abstract: Much research has been conducted that uses sensor-based modules with dedicated software to automatically distinguish the user's situation or context. The best results were obtained when powerful sensors (such as cameras or GPS systems) and/or sensor-specific algorithms (like sound analysis) were applied A somewhat new approach is to replace the one smart sensor by many simple sensors. We argue that neural networks are ideal algorithms to analyze the data coming from these sensors and describe how we came to one specific algorithm that gives good results, by giving an overview of several requirements. Finally, wearable implementations are given to show the feasibility and benefits of this approach and its implications.

Context-sensitive middleware for real-time software in ubiquitous computing environments

Abstract: Context-awareness is increasingly becoming an important capability in devices for ubiquitous computing environments. These devices use on-board sensors and history of user interaction to collect data that are used to adapt their behavior to suit with the current environment. There is a need to support real-time software in ubiquitous computing environments, especially in reactive systems, such as distributed and mobile sensors, location-based information services, etc. In these cases, both behavior and the interaction among devices depend on constantly changing environmental conditions, in addition to explicit user control. This characteristic requires specific system services to support the development and the runtime operation of real-time context-aware software. This implies that the underlying services must themselves be context-sensitive. Reconfigurable context-sensitive middleware (RCSM) is presented to facilitate real-time context-aware software in ubiquitous computing environments.

Authoring of physical models using mobile computers

Abstract: Context-aware computers rely on user and physical models to describe the context of a user. In this paper, we focus on the problem of developing and maintaining a physical model of the environment using a mobile computer. We describe a set of tools for automatically creating and modifying three-dimensional contextual information. The tools can be utilized across multiple hardware platforms, with different capabilities, and operating in collaboration with one another. We demonstrate the capabilities of the tools using two mobile platforms. One of them, a mobile augmented reality system is used to construct a geometric model of an indoor environment which is then visualized on the same platform.

CAPEUS: An Architecture for Context-Aware Selection and Execution of Services

Abstract: This paper introduces a comprehensive framework that allows mobile users to access a variety of services provided by their current environment (e.g. print services). Novel to our approach is that selection and execution of services takes into account the user’s current context. Instead of being harassed by useless activities as service browsing or configuration issues, environmental services get seamlessly aligned to the user’s present task. Thus, the challenge is to develop a new service framework that fulfils these demands.

Adaptive concepts for a mobile cartography

Abstract: GISs are moving away from a system for experts to a more widely-used tool for answering spatial-related questions. The dawn of new technologies on the horizon, such as telecommunication, mobile Internet, and handheld computing devices, offers new chances to the everyday use of geoinformation. However, the existing approaches to mobile visualisation of geoinformation mostly have a commercial background and are rather technology-centred. This quite narrow view ignores many relevant problems and does not fully profit from the new possibilities a mobile cartography could provide. Taking the existing problems into account the paper sketches a general conceptual framework for geoinformation use in a mobile environment. Specific user tasks and requests in a mobile environment are identified, which is followed by an outline of possible methods to personalise a GIS for better mobile assistance. Putting emphasis on the importance of analytical functions for mobile cartography, the process of adaptive and dynamic generation of visualisations for mobile users on the basis of vector data (e.g. SVG) is illustrated and the key research fields involved are pointed out.

Context Awareness and Mobile Phones

Abstract: This paper investigates some aspects of how context-awareness can support users of mobile phones, in particular the calling party. The use of mobile and stationary phones is discussed in relation to situational properties of a phone conversation, especially with regards to who might benefit from context-awareness in this context. An initial hypothesis is that mobile phone users communicate context information to each other (verbally) to a much higher degree than do stationary phone users. Mobile phone users could benefit much from context awareness technology, in particular when about to make a call, if they can receive context information regarding the person they are trying to reach prior to establishing the call. We argue that such technology should require low amounts of explicit user interaction, and could lead to less disrupting calls in inappropriate moments, as well as less frustration for the calling party when a call is not answered.

Distributed and disappearing user interfaces in ubiquitous computing

Abstract: New concepts for human-computer interaction have to be developed when envisioning ubiquitous computing scenarios [7]. Instead of a single screen-based user interface (UI), humans will interact with a number of devices that are distributed and interconnected. These computers range from highly personal and mobile appliances to systems that are integrated in everyday environments and are more or less invisible. When all the potential components are considered together, the design space for the UI becomes much larger than with conventional personal computers. In the process of designing UIs, decisions on the distribution of the input as well as the output through both space and time are needed. This also raises questions on how to deal with alternative, multiple input options, redundant output opportunities, and the fact that many of these UIs cannot expect to have people's attention for a long time.

Middleware for mobile computing: awareness vs. transparency

Abstract: Summary form only given. Middleware solutions for wired distributed systems cannot be used in a mobile setting, as mobile applications impose new requirements that run counter to the principle of transparency on which current middleware systems have been built. We propose the use of reflection capabilities and meta-data to pave the way for a new generation of middleware platforms designed to support mobility.

Dynamic Adaptation of Mobile Agents in Heterogenous Environments

Abstract: Mobile agents must be prepared to execute on different hosts and therefore in different execution environments. Even when a homogenous execution environment is offered by abstracting the underlying heterogeneity, there are scenarios like IT-management, where mobile agents are forced to contain environment dependent implementations. The aim of this work is to equip mobile agents with a flexible capacity to adapt to a range of different environments on demand. We discuss different forms of adaptation and draw a distinction between static and continuous forms. Our solution for dynamic adaptation provides a concept for exchanging environment dependent implementation of mobile agents during runtime. Dynamic adaptation enhances efficency of mobile code in terms of bandwidth and scalability.

Use of context-awareness in mobile peer-to-peer networks

Abstract: Mobile ad-hoc network are an emerging research field due to the potential range of applications that they support and for the problems they present due to their dynamic nature. Peer-to-peer is an example of a class of applications that have recently been deployed on top of ad-hoc networks. In this paper we propose an approach based on context-awareness to allow peer-to-peer applications to exploit information on the underlying network context to achieve better performance and better group organization. Information such as availability of resources, battery power, services in reach and relative distances can be used to improve the routing structures of the peer-to-peer network, thus reducing the routing overhead.

Towards a mobile computing middleware: Synergy of reflection and mobile code techniques

Abstract: The increasing popularity of wireless devices, such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants, watches and the like, is enabling new classes of applications that present challenging problems to designers. Applications have to be aware of, and adapt to, frequent variations in the context of execution, such as fluctuating network bandwidth, decreasing battery power changes in location or device capabilities, and so on. In this paper, we argue that middleware solutions for wired distributed systems cannot be used in a mobile setting, as the principle of transparency that has driven their design runs counter to the new degrees of awareness imposed by mobility. We propose a synergy of reflection and code mobility as a means for middleware to give applications the desired level of flexibility to react to changes happening in the environment, including those that have not necessarily been foreseen by middleware designers. We use the sharing and processing of images as an application scenario to highlight the advantages of our approach.

People and Computers XV - Interaction without Frontiers : Joint Proceedings of HCI 2001 and IHM 2001

Abstract: Preface: Interaction Without Frontiers.- Keynote Papers: As Easy to Use as a Banking Machine. Instrument Mediated Activity in Situations. From 2D Photos of Yourself to Virtual Try-on Dress on the Web.- Computer-mediated Communication: Privacy in Multimedia Communications: Protecting Users, Not Just Data. Managing Visibility in Ubiquitous Multimedia Communication Environments. Collaborating with Virtual Humans.- Requirements Engineering: An Interactive Guide Through a Defined Modelling Process. Multidisciplinary Practice in Requirements Engineering: Problems and Criteria for Support. Improving and Mediating Software-to-Usability Engineering Communication.- Usability Engineering: KALDI: A CAUsE Tool for Supporting Testing and Analysis of User Interaction. Understanding Inspection Methods: Lessons from an Assessment of Heuristic Evaluation. Developing A Usability Capability Assessment Approach through Experiments in Industrial Settings.- Revisiting Concepts: IDA-S: A Conceptual Framework for Partial Automation. Beyond Mode Error: Supporting Strategic Knowledge Structures to Enhance Cockpit Safety. DPI: A Conceptual Model Based on Documents and Interaction Instruments.- User-centred Design: Getting the Story Straight. Augmenting the Affordance of Online Help Content. Beyond the interface: Co-evolution inside Interactive Systems - A proposal founded on Activity Theory.- User Interface Modelling: A Flexible Methodology and Support Environment for Building Task Models. From the Formal Specifications of Users Tasks to the Automatic Generation of the HCI Specifications. Supporting Context Changes for Plastic User Interfaces: A Process and a Mechanism.- Computer-supported Collaborative Working: Eye-Tracking Explorations in Multimedia Communications. Rich Interaction in the Context of Networked Virtual Environments - Experiences Gained from the Multi-player Games Domain. Using Workflow for Coordination in Groupware Applications.- Mobile Computing: ToyMobile: Image-based Telecommunication and Small Children. The Reality Gap: Pragmatic Boundaries of Context Awareness. Data Capture for Clinical Anaesthesia on a Pen-based PDA: Is It a Viable Alternative to Paper?- Web Design: Interactivity and User Commitment - Relationship Building through Interaction on Websites. Evaluating Multi-modal Input Modes in a Wizard-of-Oz Study for the Domain of Web Search. Dynamic Information Presentation through Web-based Personalisation and Adaptation - An Initial Review.- Speech and Audio: Speech Output for Older Visually Impaired Adults. Using Non-speech Sounds to Improve Access to 2D Tabular Numerical Information for Visually Impaired Users. Diary in the Sky: A Spatial Audio Display for a Mobile Calendar.- Novel Input Devices: Input Device Selection and Interaction Configuration with ICON. Measuring the Usability of Text Input Methods for Children. Beyond the 10-bit Barrier: Fitts' Law in Multi-Scale Electronic Worlds.

Context Sensing, Aggregation, Representation and Exploitation in Wireless Networks

Abstract: As the use of wirelessly connected embedded mobile devices grows in vast quantity, their situative use and context sensitive behavior becomes an essential feature. For the implementation of context awareness in mobile appliances, the need for the efficient gathering, representation and delivery of context information evolves. This paper describes issues related to context sensing, representation and delivery, and proposes a new approach for context based mobile computing: Time and event triggered context sensing for mobile devices and an abstract (application and platform independent) representation of context information is introduced. The paper presents showcases of time and event triggered context sensing in wireless environments.

Situated Interaction in Art

Abstract: This paper describes metaphors and design strategies used to conceive and develop a hand-held, location-aware tourist guide that delivers information related to the surrounding space mainly by reacting to the physical movements of the visitors. The guide is designed to minimise the boundary between the physical space and the related information through a number of situated and contextual-aware interaction mechanisms. These mechanisms are conceived to support the activity both at individual and social level.

Extracting the Context of a Mobile Device User

Abstract: It has become increasingly important in mobile computing to be able to recognize the situation i.e. the context of a mobile device user, in order to enhance the effectiveness of human computer interaction. This paper describes an approach to the extraction of higher level contexts from the multidimensional low level context information, focusing on the analysis and comparison of clustering and segmentation behaviour of crisp versus fuzzy information. Context clustering is performed by using the k-means algorithm and segmentation by using a minimum-variance algorithm. The results indicate that fuzzy quantization is superior to the crisp quantization with k-means, yielding more consistent clustering. Segment borders found from the fuzzy data correspond better to the real context changes than those found from the crisp data.

Integrating context information into enterprise applications for the mobile workforce - a case study

Abstract: The integration of context information (especially location information) into mobile applications and services is one of the most crucial requirements to achieve a broader usability and hence acceptance of these. So far location information is used for typical business-to-consumer applications such as mobile-MapQuest or ATM-finder. The application of location awareness in typical enterprise or business applications, such as logistics or Customer Relationship Management (CRM), is currently addressed rather poor.In this paper we discuss the enhancement of mobile enterprise applications by context information. Starting from a customer demand and for a mobile sales force scenario, our objective was the improvement of the usability of mobile enterprise applications by introducing context information to these.

Personal contextual awareness through visual focus

Abstract: The authors explore options for using body parts as focal points for wearable systems. Their two working systems, Handel and Footprint, demonstrate several possibilities for recognizing visual body cues.

Exploiting context awareness in information agents

Abstract: We present a society of personal information agents that work for a community of users and that are aware of the physical and social context of their users. We show how context-awareness is a feature that allows the agents to improve their performance when they work with limited resources in information spaces with a large amount of information. The use of context information allows the agents to focus their information search and, as a result of this, increase the quantity and quality of information delivered to the user. Moreover, we present an agent architecture with context-aware capabilities used in the Comris project [4] for assisting people attending to big conferences and fairs. The research on context awareness is also increasing and is encouraged by the new possibilities that o ers the mobile communications [2].

Telme: a personalized, context-aware communication support system

Abstract: True global communication will require more than just language translation technologies. To fully understand each other, people also need context-specific information. The authors have developed Telme, a support system that gives users real-time information to help bridge the knowledge and experience gap. The authors explain the Telme framework for wearable computers connected to a central knowledge base server. The server controls a background knowledge database and downloads data on user request.

Pitfalls and perspectives in context-awareness

Abstract: Despite increasing interest in context-aware artifacts we are still far from understanding the full complexity of making use of context. In this paper, we attempt to contribute to clarifying the notion of context by making an explicit distinction between context and situation which we understand as a social construct in the first place. In particular, we argue that some of the difficulties with artifacts making use of context arise because of the fundamental difference between context as a description of a situation and the situation itself: while the situation is open to (re-)negotiation, the opportunity is lost once the situation has been codified as context.

Applying Mobile Agents to Enable Dynamic, Context-Aware Interaction for Mobile Phone Users

Abstract: Mobile agents can play a critical role in enabling dynamic applications on mobile phones. They can carry executable code, making possible effortless downloading of new capabilities and services to mobile phones. When combined with services that support context awareness, user customization, and sensitivity to the mobile phone environment, mobile agents can be used to provide the basis for a rich set of applications. This paper provides an overview of the problems faced in this application domain and outlines the approach we are following in our research.

Application sharing in teaching context with wireless networks

Abstract: The success of teaching is depending on a couple of factors: on how far students are involved into lectures, on the material, its completeness and on co-learning of students. Involvement of students into lectures means, being able to follow the thoughts of the teacher, ask questions and make comments. The material must be presented in a suitable form and essential parts of it have to be available during the whole learning process, for preparing participation in lectures and exercises as well as for exams. For more effective learning and training of social abilities, working in groups of co-learners has to be encouraged. Mobile and ubiquitous computing offer new possibilities to achieve these goals by increasing the awareness in class and supporting an active participation of students. By promoting existing concepts and enabling new ways of application sharing, the project SASCIA (System architecture supporting cooperative and interactive applications) aims at developing a framework for multiple applications to support teaching in collocated, remote and hybrid scenarios. Its core is composed of components to capture and distribute context information about sessions, participants and those applications that are used during a lecture or encounter among students. A configurable floor control was designed to cope with a wide spectrum of applications and learning situations. For some cases, even a control for semantic consistency can be necessary. In combination with a suitable user and session management, a whiteboard for annotations and a recording facility to support latecomers as well as subsequent replay, these components are providing the required functionality. As a consequence, SASCIA offers remote control and viewing facilities to all participants during lectures and co-learning sessions.

Middleware for building adaptive migratory continuous media applications

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a middleware system for building adaptive migratory continuous media applications. In future computing environments, a variety of objects at home and in offices will embed computers, and various applications will be moved among these computers according to the user's locations. For example, a computer that executes an application may be changed to another computer according to the location of the application's user for monitoring his behavior. However, since the computers may have dramatically different hardware and software configurations, the application cannot be moved without taking into account the configurations of the computers that the application is migrated. Therefore, migratory applications should be aware of environments where they are executed. The paper focuses on middleware for building adaptive migratory continuous media applications that are one of the most important classes of migratory applications. Our middleware consists of three components. The first component is an environment server that monitors computing environments that applications run, and it notifies the changes of the environments to the applications. The second component is a continuous media toolkit that enables us to build adaptive migratory continuous media applications easily. The toolkit enables us to build continuous media applications in a highly configurable way. This makes applications to be adapted to every computing environment by changing their configurations. The third component is a migration manager that makes applications migratory. We also show an example of a migratory application, and describe some experiences with building the application.