Context-Aware Computing Applications - Mobile Computing Systems and Applications, 1994. Proceedings., Workshop on

This paper describes systems that examine anNd react t o an individual’s changing context. Such systems can, promote and mediate people’s interactions with devices, computers, and other people, and they can help navigate unfamiliar places. W e believe that a l ini ted amount of information covering a person’s proximate environment is most important for this f o r m of computing since the interesting par t of the world around us is what we can see, hear, and touch. I n this paper we define contezt-aware computing, and describe four categories of context-aware applications: proximate selection, automatic contextual reconfiguration, contextual information and commands, and context-triggered actions. Instances of these application tgpes have been prototyped on the PARCTAB, a wireless, palm-sized computer.