The Context Toolkit Aiding the development of Context-aware Application CHI’99 Written by Anind K. Dey Summarized by Gihyun Gong

Copyright  2008 by CEBT About paper  Appeared in CHI 1999, conference in Human-Computer Interaction  Written by Anind K. Dey, Assistant Professor in the Human- Computer Interaction (HCI) Institute of Carnegie Mellon  Context defined by Dey : Any information that can be used to characterize the situation of entities that are considered relevant to the interaction between a user and an application, including the user and the application themselves  Provides their context-toolkit :

Copyright  2008 by CEBT Motivation  Current State of Context-aware (1999) Lack of uniform support for building and executing application – Ad-hoc manner – Heavily influenced by the underlying technology Lack of generality – Requiring each new application to be built from the ground up  We need architectural support that provides the general mechanisms required by context  The goal of this research is to provide a toolkit that makes it easier for application developers to use context

Copyright  2008 by CEBT Requirements of toolkit  Separation of concerns  Context interpretation  Distributed communications  Constant availability of context acquisition  Context history storage  Resource discovery

Copyright  2008 by CEBT Context Toolkit  Built in Java, released Java Library  Three main component Widgets – Mediate between a user and an application Aggregators – Widgets + aggregate context of real world Interpreters – Abstract or interpret low-level context into high level – For example, identity, location, sound level information could be used to interpret that a meeting is taking place.

Copyright  2008 by CEBT Context Toolkit  Built in Java, released Java Library  Three main component Widgets – Mediate between a user and an application Aggregators – Widgets + aggregate context of real world Interpreters – Abstract or interpret low-level context into high level – For example, identity, location, sound level information could be used to interpret that a meeting is taking place.

Copyright  2008 by CEBT Context Toolkit – Widgets  IdentityPresence Widget

Copyright  2008 by CEBT Context Toolkit – Widgets  Activity Widget

Copyright  2008 by CEBT Context Toolkit – Widgets  NamePresence User’s actual name  PhoneUse Using phone, length of use  MachineUse Logon/off, Session  GroupURLPresence Person’s research group information

Copyright  2008 by CEBT Sample configuration of context components

Copyright  2008 by CEBT Scenario 1  In/Out board Indicates which members of the office are currently in the building Catch events that entrance of people  Used Context Information Person’s identity Time

Copyright  2008 by CEBT Scenario 2  Information display Displays information relevant to the user’s location, identity. Personalized Display  Used context information – Location of the display – Identity of the user – Research group and user belonging

Copyright  2008 by CEBT Scenario 3  DUMMBO Meeting board Instrumented digitizing whiteboard Supports the capture and access of informal and spontaneous meetings  Used Context Information Participant’s Identities Time when they arrived, left Location of the board

Copyright  2008 by CEBT Future research  Resource Discovery  Deal with uncertain or ambiguous context data  Controller for personal/private context data

Copyright  2008 by CEBT Discussion  Contribution Try solve lack of generality problem Suggest general components of context-aware system Working Java API  However, scenarios are toy level even though it is written in 1999  Why this widgets are not widely used today?  Also, why the develop of this toolkit is stopped?  A complete Framework such as SOUPA is better than this Toolkit?