Context-aware computing refers to a general class of mobile systems that can sense their physical environment, and adapt their behavior accordingly.
Three important aspects of context are: where you are; who you are with; and what resources are nearby. Although location is a primary capability,
location-aware does not necessarily capture things of interest that are mobile or changing. Context-aware in contrast is used more generally to include nearby people, devices, lighting, noise level, network availability, and even the social situation, e.g., whether you are with your family or a friend from school.
History
The concept emerged from
ubiquitous computing
Ubiquitous computing (or "ubicomp") is a concept in software engineering, hardware engineering and computer science where computing is made to appear anytime and everywhere. In contrast to desktop computing, ubiquitous computing can occur using ...
research at
Xerox PARC
PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...
and elsewhere in the early 1990s. The term 'context-aware' was first used by Schilit and Theimer in their 1994 paper ''Disseminating Active Map Information to Mobile Hosts'' where they describe a model of computing ''in which users interact with many different mobile and stationary computers'' and classify a context-aware systems as one that can ''adapt according to its location of use, the collection of nearby people and objects, as well as the changes to those objects over time over the course of the day.''
See also
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Ambient intelligence
In computing, ambient intelligence (AmI) refers to electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people. Ambient intelligence was a projection on the future of consumer electronics, telecommunications and comput ...
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Context awareness
Context awareness refers, in information and communication technologies, to a capability to take into account the ''situation'' of ''entities'', which may be users or devices, but are not limited to those. ''Location'' is only the most obvious el ...
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Differentiated service (design pattern)
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Locative Media
Locative media or location-based media (LBM) are Electronic media, media of communication functionally bound to a location. The physical implementation of locative media, however, is not bound to the same location to which the content refers.
Loc ...
References
Further reading
A Survey of Context Data Distribution for Mobile Ubiquitous Systems P. Bellavista, A. Corradi, M. Fanelli, L. Foschini. ''
ACM Computing Surveys'' (CSUR),
ACM Press
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...
, expected to appear in Vol. 45, No. 1, March 2013, pages 1–49.
Context and Adaptivity in Pervasive Computing Environments: Links with Software Engineering and Ontological Engineering A. Soylu, P. De Causmaecker, P. Desmet. Journal of Software, Vol 4, No 9 (2009), 992-1013, November 2009
Context-Aware Computing Applications Bill N. Schilit, Norman I. Adams, and Roy Want. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications, Santa Cruz, CA, December 1994. Pages 85–90. IEEE Computer Society.
A Service-Oriented Middleware for Building Context-Aware Services T. Gu, H. K. Pung, D. Zhang. Elsevier Journal of Network and Computer Applications (JNCA), Vol. 28, Issue 1, pp. 1–18, January 2005.
* X. Wang, J. S. Dong, C. Chin, S. R. Hettiarachchi and D. Zhang. Semantic Space: A Semantic Web Infrastructure for Smart Spaces. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 3(3):32-39, July–September 2004
Towards an Cooperative Programming Framework for Context-Aware Applications B. Guo, D. Zhang, M. Imai. ACM/Springer Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 221–233, 2011.
Context-Aware Pervasive Systems: Architectures for a New Breed of Applicationsby Seng W. Loke.
Context Modeling and Reasoning using Ontologies Feruzan Ay, 2007: The paper gives an introduction to context modeling and reasoning in the area of pervasive computing.
Context-Aware Information Delivery. An Application in the Health Care Domain J.JAHNKE, Y.BYCHKOV, D.DAHLEM, L.KAWASME. Revue d'Intelligence Artificielle, Volume 19, Issue 3, p. 459-478 (2005)
There is more to context than location Albrecht Schmidt, Michael Beigl and Hans-W. Gellersen. In: Computers & Graphics Journal, Elsevier, Volume 23, No.6, December 1999, pp 893–902.
A data-oriented survey of context models Cristiana Bolchini, Carlo Curino, Elisa Quintarelli, Fabio A. Schreiber, Letizia Tanca. In: SIGMOD Record 36(4): 19-26 (2007)
External links
Xerox PARCTABis generally considered the first context-aware mobile computer.
First International Workshop on Quality of Context(QuaCon '09), 25–26 June 2009, Stuttgart, Germany
4th International Workshop on Location- and Context-Awareness(LoCA 2009), 7–8 May 2009, Tokyo Japan
3rd International Workshop on Location- and Context-Awareness(LoCA 2007), 20–21 September 2007, Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich (DLR), Germany
2nd International Workshop on Location- and Context-Awareness(LoCA 2006), 10–11 May 2006, Dublin Ireland
1st International Workshop on Location- and Context-Awareness(LoCA 2005), 12–13 May 2005, Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich (DLR), Germany
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Pervasive Computing and Mental Health
{{Autonomous cars and enabling technologies
Ubiquitous computing
Embedded systems