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Context-aware Computing
By Trishus | September 15, 2008
Ubiquitous computing (also know as pervasive computing) has been played out in many a sci-fi futuristic film but it is taking shape in our world today. Mark Weiser, wrote about computing in the 21st century; “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.” (full doc).
We may not have reached that yet but applications that are aware of the context in which its user exists is becoming more and more important especially are we are wanting our computing to be more and more mobile.
Applications ability to adapt to social, functional, locational, temporal and motivation context allow our computing experience to be more in tune with what we need and use less of our limited resources (such as battery power, bandwidth etc..). Development is even underway to make sensor that can interact with computers to input emotional context. Imagine a sensor that could measure things like your heart rate, temperature, blood pressure and map it against human emotions and have applications that adapt to it. Envision what it would like if an email sent when the user was angry sat in the outbox until their ‘emotions’ cooled off, giving a second look at them before really sending or when the user was sad, their phone automatically sent a ‘call me’ SMS to their partner, mum or best friend.
Would this be a good thing?
Any thoughts or ideas on how emotional context could be used or misused?
Topics: Masters, Uncategorized, geek |
January 8th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
It’s very much what I’d like to see, ubiquity, flexibility, and adaptability. Don’t forget that with nanotech, pretty soon we’ll be able to implant such sensors without feeling any practical difference - but our machines will be able to understand us more.
I can’t wait until cars - in particular - can respond more appropriately to our moods, by increasing our safety distance when we’re angry, for example, changing the lighting and sound in the cabin, and perhaps even reducing acceleration so we’re not tempted to gun it past an annoying driver.
But ubiquity means the technology disappears - so it would also be handy if my house knew I was coming home, turned the air conditioning or heating on, and set the room lighting to calm me down after a hectic day at work, and arranged for a few beers to be delivered. All without me knowing or caring…