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An Exploration Of The Barriers To And Drivers Of Delivering ...



An exploration of the barriers to and drivers of delivering context-sensitive mobile media applications
Literature Review
Introduction
The history of computing is littered with experiments aimed at shifting paradigms and human-computer interaction. Ubiquitous computing has been introduced by Weiser (1991) more than a decade ago to hint at information technology as being a part of the environment. The accuracy of this prediction is still to be seen, yet, the reality is not far in today's scenario. Weiser (1991) has envisioned small devices, such as mobile phones and PDAs, acting as technological communication consoles for electronic access of information for complex usage, such as gauging user environment, identification of location and user preferences. Following Weiser's concept, today ubiquitous computing has become highly appreciated in the field of mobile media applications as it can be seen in personal devices and applications, whereby, the data is influenced by user behaviour.
Ubiquitous computing has given rise to a new form of computing - context based or context-aware computing. According to Abowd, Dey and Wood (1998), context-aware computing is defined as "work that leads to the automation of a software system based on knowledge of user's physical, social, emotional and informational state." Context-aware applications enable the user to interact with the environment and input information to facilitate user's need. In other word "Context is any information that can be used to characterize the situation of an entity. An entity is a person, place, or object that is considered relevant to the interaction between a user and an application, including the user and application themselves" (Dey and Abowd 1999). On the other hand, Benerecetti, Bouquet and Bonifacio (2001) define context in terms of the distributed context-aware systems: "Context is not simply a collection of features of the surrounding environment but a partial and approximate representation used by an agent to interact with the environment and with other agents." However, so far context-aware applications have been created not specifically in the context of the social environment but more in the context of technological development. Some of the characteristics of context-aware applications include the following:
- Information and services in context-aware applications can be presented in the current context. This depends on the proximate information and services, along with commands, that the user feeds in to determine the situation or event.
- Context-aware applications allow automatic execution with certain conditions and context. Context can be triggered when the user executes certain commands forcing the application to adapt and change according to the user's needs.
- Context -aware applications allow tagging of context information for future retrieval (Korkea-aho 2000).


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