Context Aware Computing (part 2)

CS 160 Discussion SectionApril 18, 2006

Ryan Aipperspach

Last Time…

An Extreme Smart Home ScenarioMavHome operations can be characterized by the following scenario. At 6:45 am, MavHome turns up the heat because it has learned that the home needs 15 minutes to warm to optimal temperature for waking. The alarm goes off at 7:00, which signals the bedroom light to go on as well as the coffee maker in the kitchen. Bob steps into the bathroom and turns on the light. MavHome records this interaction, displays the morning news on the bathroom video screen, and turns on the shower. While Bob is shaving, MavHome senses that Bob is two pounds over his ideal weight and adjusts Bob’s suggested menu. When Bob finishes grooming, the bathroom light turns off while the kitchen light and menu/schedule display turns on, and the news program moves to the kitchen screen…

Because the refrigerator is low on milk and cheese, MavHome places a grocery order to arrive just before Bob comes home. When Bob arrives home, his grocery order has arrived and the hot tub is waiting for him.

http://mavhome.uta.edu/publications/cookpc03.pdf

An Extreme Smart Home ScenarioMavHome operations can be characterized by the following scenario. At 6:45 am, MavHome turns up the heat because it has learned that the home needs 15 minutes to warm to optimal temperature for waking. The alarm goes off at 7:00, which signals the bedroom light to go on as well as the coffee maker in the kitchen. Bob steps into the bathroom and turns on the light. MavHome records this interaction, displays the morning news on the bathroom video screen, and turns on the shower. While Bob is shaving, MavHome senses that Bob is two pounds over his ideal weight and adjusts Bob’s suggested menu. When Bob finishes grooming, the bathroom light turns off while the kitchen light and menu/schedule display turns on, and the news program moves to the kitchen screen…

Because the refrigerator is low on milk and cheese, MavHome places a grocery order to arrive just before Bob comes home. When Bob arrives home, his grocery order has arrived and the hot tub is waiting for him.

http://mavhome.uta.edu/publications/cookpc03.pdf

Problematic Notions of Context The MavHome example assumes that

systems can encode context and decide the “right” thing to do in complicated situations

This can work in some situations, like turning off the lights when no one is in the room (if you can reliably detect location)

But not always…

The Adaptive Home Project by Mike Mozer

at UC Boulderhttp://www.cs.colorado.edu/~mozer/house/

Controlled lights, heat, etc. using neural networks

Alternate Notions of Context Dourish [2004] highlights the disconnect

between the goal of situating context in social settings and technological definitions of context

Most framings of context from the technological perspective are positivist

Most of the social science disciplines used to inform context-aware applications are phenomenological

Alternate Notions of Context Dourish [2004] lists 4 problematic

assumptions with traditional forms of context

1.Context is a form of information

2.Context is delineable

3.Context is stable

4.Context and activity are separable

1.Context is a form of information E.g., the entire relevant context of a situation

can be encoded in a software system. (You can make a “context object”.)

Remember from earlier: “Context is typically the location, identity and state of people, groups and computational and physical objects.”

For the conference assistant“what room the user is in”, “the current lecture slide”, …

2. Context is delineable E.g., it is possible to decide what context is

relevant for a particular application domain“any information that can be used to characterize the situation of entities (i.e. whether a person, place or object) that are considered relevant to the interaction between a user and an application, including the user and the application themselves.”

3. Context is stable E.g., it is possible to determine, once-and-for-all,

what pieces of context will be relevant to any given application

In an automatic grocery ordering systemIf I happen to see a cooking show while visiting a friend and decide that I want to cook the dish on the show, the recipe listed on the show’s website suddenly becomes relevant.

But, it may not be relevant the next time the show is on TV.

4. Context and activity are separable

E.g., activities happen within a contextI have a conversation within a location. The conversation is the activity, and the location is part of the context.

Instead…

1. Contextuality is a relational property

2. The scope of contextual features is defined dynamically

3. Context is an occasional property, relevant to particular situations

4. Context arises from activity

Are seat-belts contextually relevant?

Application: “Keep siblings from arguing”

[Eric Laurier, Habitable Cars Project]http://web.ges.gla.ac.uk/~elaurier/habitable_cars/

Are seat-belts contextually relevant?

1. Contextuality is a relational property“Seat-belt status” is relevant to the activity of managing arguing children

2. The scope of contextual features is defined dynamically“Seat-belt status” becomes relevant when the mother invokes the seatbelt as a tool

3. Context is an occasional property, relevant to particular situations“Seat-belt status” becomes relevant in this particular mother’s car

4. Context arises from activityThe relevance of “seat-belt status” was produced by the mother’s problem-solving

Context Producing Applications Instead of trying to sense context,

participate in the process of producing context…

“How can ubiquitous computing support the process by which context is continually manifest, defined, negotiated, and shared?” [Dourish 2004]

Context Producing Applications Augmented Refrigerator Magnets

Glowing Day-of-Week Magnets

Recorded Annotations

Pictures of person who placed an item

Context Producing Applications HomeNote

A home display with an SMS number

Context Producing Applications ZoneTag (Yahoo! Research Berkeley)

Help users annotate images with context, to facilitate sharing

Context Producing Applications Health Feedback Displays

Show social activity of elders in terms of amount of contact with individuals each day (a and b)

and

Total contact over time (c)

[Morris, 2005]

Context Producing Applications Collaborative

Filtering

Respects privacy

Revealssharedstate

What are some possible “smart

home applications” based on the

second definition of context?

Conclusions Two definitions of context

“Observed” context [Dey and Abowd]

“Co-produced” context [Dourish]

Both have strengths and weaknesses

HCI researchers are still figuring out how to design Context Aware applications…