Context awareness

Context awareness is a term from computer science, that is used for devices that have information about the circumstances under which they operate and can react accordingly. Context aware devices may also try to make assumptions about the user s current situation.

For example: A context aware mobile phone may know that it is currently in the meeting room, and that the user has sat down. The phone may conclude that the user is currently in a meeting and reject any unimportant calls.

Context awareness is used to design new user interfaces, and is often a part of ubiquitous computing and wearable computer. It is also beginning to be felt in the internet with the advent of hybrid search engines. Ted Selker of MIT and Anind Dey of Carnegie-Mellon are leading experts in this bleeding edge field.