Jun 28 2010
A Pakistani student of the University of Leicester, as part of his doctoral research, has studied a method of feeding computer systems with situational changes by incorporating software sensors in the systems, which are capable of monitoring the context or activity of the user. The student Kamran Taj Pathan stated that changes in the environment can be made available to users through their computer systems, by integrating the systems with users’ location, time of the day, the user’s profile and activity.
By doing this, the computer system can be made to act in favor of a user’s needs in a given context. For example, if a student had scheduled a meeting with his supervisor at a certain time, he can be forewarned by his computer that the supervisor cannot attend the meeting due to bad weather conditions. The system can be configured to process the information in the user’s profile and the inputs on environmental conditions in conjunction with each other, and make inferences on activities.
The new technique belongs to the area of ubiquitous computing, a field of which is the design of context-aware systems that are capable of assessing user needs and their expectations from their systems. The increasing level of mobility in devices is driving the popularity of this field, which is also known as integrating devices in daily life in indiscernible ways. Traditionally, only hardware devices were used for gathering information about user activity, such as tracking devices used for locating a user’s position. The University of Leicester research study aims at reducing shifting the responsibility of ubiquitous computing from expensive hardware modules that are also characteristic of heavy installation time to software systems capable of capturing user information virtually.
Structured knowledge and reusable and extendable sources of contexts are required for using software for ubiquitous computing. In favor of this technology, a Generic Semantic Model was scheduled for presentation at University of Leicester’s Festival of Postgraduate Research 2010 on 24 June 2010. Pathan expects this new technology to assist individuals in making their systems act according to their current requirements. He foresees its application in public and private organizations, namely, education, law enforcement, banking, retail and travel, which support users via collaborative working environments.
Source: http://www2.le.ac.uk