Too Much Information – Context-Aware Applications

ChelleChelle writes with a link to IBM research on the limits to and lessons learned from two context-aware computing projects: "As the researchers Moran and Dourish put it, 'Context awareness is fine in theory. The research issue is figuring out how to get it to work in practice.' The article lays out two attempts by IBM to do just this. Grapevine and Rendezvous are services offered to IBM employees as a means of looking into the promise and perils of context-aware computing. From these two experimental services the authors have drawn several valuable lessons." From the article: "What computer scientists commonly call context often has more to do with technology than with work situations, people, or frames of mind."

Comments

No!

[mqduck]

No, no, no, no.

As I commented on the intuitive OS thread or whatever it was called, users (or at least I) don't want an OS that acts unpredictable. I don't want to wait around for hours for a message before finally figuring out that my cell phone decided I didn't want to be reminded of them right then. Consistency is uncompromisable.

Re:No!

[Anonymous Coward]

It has already started.

- You leave while a 6h long computation is running, come back later to discover that Windows XP decided to work for 30 min and hibernate for 5.5 hours.

- At a critical moment, Norton decides its pop-up is more important than whatever you're doing.

- You want to show a video to people but your media player decides it should first spend 5 minutes auto-updating.

- You leave your car headlights on and walk in the woods to take a leak at night. Some timeout feature decides to turn off the lights and leave you stranded in the dark.

Some technologies are past their prime. Engineers are bored, so they add automatic features. Consumers have to waste time understanding those features, and turning them off or outsmarting them.