Written by Noora Saros and Md Shariful Islam
Let’s say you’re driving a car on a beautiful sunny day. You have your
phone on the windshield and Google Maps is guiding you to your target location.
Suddenly you drive in to a tunnel and the map on Google Maps turns dark. You
drive out of the tunnel - back in to the bright sunlight - and the map turns
back to it’s normal state. What happened is that the app noticed that there was
very little light and turned a so called “Night Mode” on. This means that the
Google Maps app is “context-aware”, it tracks what’s going around your phone.
Even without the Night Mode, Google Maps as a navigator, is context-aware,
since it tracks your location via GPS and adjusts your location, route and view
on the screen accordingly.
Picture 1 Google Maps app Day Mode and Night Mode (Noora
2018)
A context-aware system
is a system that is aware of it’s surroundings and the current situation and
adjust itself accordingly. It can sense physical things, such as location,
orientation, time, light or even the weather. It might be that the system is
aware of it’s user: things like identity, physiology, activity or behavior. If
a system is context-aware of it’s computing environment, it means that it can
sense nearby services, resources and other devices. (Ahtinen & Chowdhury
2018)
We have our smartphones, smartwatches, Fitbits etc. that track our lives
every day. Some devices might track your pulse, your steps or your activity.
All this leads to an enormous amount of data that might be processed in to
information. When planning a context-aware system it must be taken into a count
how the user will perceive the information that is provided. It must – first of
all – be in an understandable form to the user. Thousands of rows of raw data
of how you walked form home to the campus might not benefit the user in any way
but giving an average speed, counted steps and the burned kcals might lead to
an increased motivation towards walking – and tracking your walks through the
system.
Some people have
gotten so in to tracking themselves that there now is a phenomenon called
quantified self. This means tracking yourself with devices and using the gained
information to better yourself. Another phenomenon is life-logging, which means
logging of life-events. Later in life these events can then be viewed through
the data that was recorded. Thanks to the context aware technology, tracking
and logging information are recorder automatically. (Ahtinen & Chowdhury
2018.)
Context aware system for safety
A fire alarm is a very
common context-aware safety system. Context aware systems will play a huge role
in automation industry. User’s safety is a big issue in automated factory. What
will happen when an operator gets in a robot’s way? Will he be killed or
injured? A context-aware robot may at least be able to halt its action to avoid
collision. An elevator’s door is a very common example of a context-aware
system regarding the safety issue. In a more advanced system robotic instrument
may resume its operation and adjust itself with the whole system accordingly
after the obstacle got away. A highly sophisticated context aware system is
necessary for advanced implementation, a self-driving car for example. A
self-driving car has to detect, compute and response to various context at a
time.
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Picture 2 How a context-aware system can detect presence
and ensure safety (Quora)
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Sources:
1. Ahtinen, A.,
Chowdhury, A. 2018. Psychology of Pervasive Computing, Lecture 3. 10.9.2018. Tampere
University of Technology
Pictures:
Picture 1: Noora 2018
Picture 2: Quora. Available
online: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-purpose-of-LED-in-optical-mouse-Automatic-lift-sensors-automatic-wash-basin
Hi!
ReplyDeleteThank you for this interesting post! I have always been fascinated by the way these systems work!
I agree with all the points that have been developed in this post.
Where I wonder most is about fully autonomous systems such as autonomous cars. Besides, there is a problem that has been raised. Let's imagine that an accident will happen with the car. There is a bicycle on the left of the car and a bus with many children inside, on the right of the autonomous car.
We are in the case where an accident will happen. The problem is the following one: if the car turns left, it kills the cyclist, if the car turned the steering wheel left it will kill several children on the bus. In this situation, what should be done? Moreover, in the eyes of the law, is the person in the autonomous car responsible for the accident and therefore for the death of other people?
Is it a good solution to move towards a world where humans are more and more dependent on machines? Would we be able in the future to make important decisions on our own, without their help?
Mathieu HENRY
I liked your first example about Google Maps and its light mode changing. It was really clear example which points out practical usefulness for everyone in daily life.
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to read about the safety problems and the importance of context-awareness of robots. I still wonder how context-aware systems use the data they have collected e.g. privacy and cyber safety. For example do you want to share with the company all the information your activity bracelet has collected or can somebody follow your activity (e.g. employer if activity bracelet is sponsored by your work place). It is also possible that somebody want's to use context-aware systems in the wrong way or hack them (armies, hospitals, other safety things).
Jane