THESIS PROPOSAL: Adrian de Freitas
When
-
Where
GHC 4405
Description
Thesis Proposal
A Framework to Support Opportunistic Groups in Context Aware Applications
Adrian de Freitas
Thesis Committee:
Anind Dey (Chair), HCII
Jen Mankoff, HCII
Steven Dow, HCII
Saul Greenberg, CS, University of Calgary
Document: http://1drv.ms/1HhTwRa
Abstract:
Context-aware computing utilizes information about users and their environment in order to provide relevant information and services. To date, however, most context-aware applications only take advantage of contexts that can either be produced on the device they are running on, or on external devices that are known beforehand. While there are many application domains that would benefit from the ability to serendipitously sense and share context between users/devices, creating these applications is currently difficult because there is no way for devices to work together without either 1) explicitly directing them to do so, or 2) through some form of advanced user coordination (e.g., sharing credentials, installing and running the same software). This makes these approaches useful when the need to exchange information is known a priori, but impractical for the one-time, spontaneous interactions that make up the majority of our lives.
In this thesis, we present the Group Context Framework (GCF), a new software toolkit that simplifies the process of sharing contextual information between two or more devices. In contrast with other techniques that require explicit pre-coordination between the specific users/devices involved, GCF allows devices to intelligently and autonomously form opportunistic groups based on their contextual relevance to one another. This allows developers to take advantage of opportunistic context in their applications without requiring devices to explicitly know of each other in advance. In addition to providing the technical means for devices to form opportunistic groups and share context, we will also present a series of applications that demonstrates how this capability can be used to increase users’ ability to interact with other devices and with each other. Together, this work demonstrates the utility of opportunistic groups in context-aware computing, and highlights the critical challenges that need to be addressed in order for opportunistic context sharing to be practical in real world systems.
The research questions that we will answer in this thesis are:
· R1. How can we allow devices to opportunistically form groups and share context?
· R2. What types of context-aware applications can be practically created via opportunistic groups and context sharing?
· R3. What are the unique challenges associated with utilizing opportunistic context in context-aware applications?