(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2001)
Nagel, Kristine Susanne; Kidd, Cory D.; O'Connell, Thomas; Dey, Anind K.; Abowd, Gregory D.
We have begun an exploration of how ubiquitous computing technology can facilitate different forms of audio communication within a family. We are interested in both intra- and inter-home communication. Though much technology exists to support this human-human communication, none of them make effective use of the context of the communication partners. In the Aware Home Research Initiative, we are exploring how to augment a domestic envi-ronment with knowledge of the location and activities of its occupants. The Family Intercom project is trying to explore how this context can be used to create a variety of lightweight communication opportunities between collo-cated and remote family members. It is particularly important that context about the status of the callee be communicated to the caller, so that the appropriate social protocol for continuing a conversation can be performed by the caller. In this paper, we will discuss our initial prototypes to develop a testbed for exploring these context-aware audio communication services.
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2000)
Dey, Anind K.; Mankoff, Jennifer C.; Abowd, Gregory D.
Current context-aware services make the assumption that the context they are dealing with is correct. However, in reality, both sensed and interpreted context is often imperfect. In this paper, we describe an architecture that supports the building of context-aware services that assume context is imperfect and allows for the refinement of this imperfect context by mobile users in aware-environments. We discuss the architectural mechanisms and design heuristics that arise from supporting this refinement over space and time. We illustrate the use of our architecture and heuristics through two example context-aware services, an In-Out Board for the home and a situation-aware reminder tool.