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Originally Posted by Brian
As Evan Light at Palm Addicts points out in a recent Associate Writer Thought, we're starting to see more "smart" features and applications for our smartphones and PDAs....
Putting everything into context
Context is an important and powerful concept in human-computer interaction, as it is in our social interaction and perception of the world. Who, what, where, why, when, and how are all important pieces of "metadata" that help us put information and events in the proper context. Software applications and services that have context awareness operate using information about context and react accordingly. The goal is to create a computing environment that is much more seamless, convenient, relevant, and intuitive for the user. |
I wanted to point out a couple of recent features that are quite "context aware" on the Treo 650.
Using a third party software, the Treo 650 is able to alter the brightness of its screen based upon the user's current ambient light level. Using the camera it detects the light level of the users surroundings and increases or decreases the screens brightness to fit the user's needs.
A second, similar feature is the abilty to adjust the phone's volume based on the background noise level. Context awareness takes the form of noting you are at you quite desk and decreasing the ringer's volume or alternatively noting the subway car your riding on is quite loud and you'll need a louder alarm and ringer.
The user also has the option to adjust the future ringer's volume while scheduling a meeting. The volume will automatically be adjusted up and down according to your needs. While it does require your forethought to include an activation code, it could well be added to a future version of a datebook application as a simple check option or setup as a preference for meetings.
These are albeit small, but none the less powerful, steps in the direction of context awareness and intelligent assistance.