The Context Toolkit

A toolkit for context-aware applications

On this page:

• Overview
• A Sample Context Widget for Sensing Presence and Identity
• A Sample Application: In/Out Board
• Publications  (updated 11/10/2002) - added UIST 2002 and CHI 2003 paper
• Projects  (updated 11/09/2002) - added Augmented Wheelchair
• Documentation
• Download Information  (updated 2/24/2000)

Overview

By context, we mean environmental information that is part of an application's operating environment and that can be sensed by the application.

The Context Toolkit consists of context widgets and a distributed infrastructure that hosts the widgets. Context widgets are software components that provide applications with access to context information while hiding the details of context sensing.

In the same way GUI widgets insulate applications from some presentation concerns, context widgets insulate applications from context acquisition concerns.

To summarize, the services of the Context Toolkit are:

• encapsulation of sensors
• access to context data through a network API
• abstraction of context data through interpreters
• sharing of context data through a distributed infrastructure
• storage of context data, including history
• basic access control for privacy protection

A Sample Context Widget for Sensing Presence and Identity

Right: To dock, the user snaps her iButton into the reader. Below: The reader is mounted on Dummbo, an augmented whiteboard for impromptu meetings. When two users dock, Dummbo assumes a meeting is beginning and starts capturing audio and whiteboard drawings.

A Sample Application: In/Out Board

If we switch to another sensing device such as Active Badges, we will use the exact same application executable. Only the context sensing layer of the widget will have to be rewritten. 

Publications (Updated 11/09/2002)

• Stuck in the Middle: The Challenges of User-Centered Design and Evaluation for Middleware

(abstract, pdf)
Keith Edwards, Victoria Bellotti, Anind K. Dey and Mark Newman
To appear in the Proceedings of the 2003 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2003), Fort Lauderdale, FL, April 5-10, 2003.
 
• Distributed Mediation of Ambiguous Context in Aware Environments

(abstract, pdf)
Anind K. Dey, Jennifer Mankoff, Gregory D. Abowd and Scott Carter
Proceedings of the 15th Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2002), Paris, France, October 28-30, 2002. pp. 121-130.
 
• Stuck in the Middle: Bridging the Gap Between Design, Evaluation, and Middleware

(pdf)
Keith Edwards, Victoria Belotti, Anind K. Dey and Mark Newman
Intel Research Berkeley Technical Report IRB-TR-02-013. Submitted to Designing Interactive Systems (DIS 2002), July 2002.
 
• A Conceptual Framework and a Toolkit for Supporting the Rapid Prototyping of Context-Aware Applications

(abstract, pdf)
Anind K. Dey, Daniel Salber and Gregory D. Abowd
Anchor article of a special issue on context-aware computing in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Journal, Volume 16 (2-4), 2001, pp. 97-166.
 
• The Family Intercom: Developing a Context-Aware Audio Communication System

(abstract, pdf)
Kris Nagel, Cory D. Kidd, Thomas I'Connell, Anind K. Dey and Gregory D. Abowd
Proceedings of Ubicomp 2001, Atlanta, GA, September 30 - October 2, 2001. pp. 176-183.
 
• Understanding and Using Context

(pdf)
Anind K. Dey
Personal and Ubiquitous Computing Journal, Volume 5 (1), 2001, pp. 4-7.
 
• Providing Architectural Support for Building Context-Aware Applications

(abstract, pdf, postscript)
Anind K. Dey.
PhD thesis, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, December 2000.
 
• Distributed and Disappearing User Interfaces in Ubiquitous Computing

(pdf, postscript)
Anind K. Dey, Peter Ljundstrand and Albrecht Schmidt, Workshop Organizers.
Workshop abstract to appear in the Proceedings of the 2001 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2001), Seattle, WA, March 31 - April 5, 2001.
 
• Distributed Mediation of Imperfectly Sensed Context in Aware Environments

(abstract, pdf, postscript)
Anind K. Dey, Jen Mankoff and Gregory D. Abowd.
GVU Technical Report GIT-GVU-00-14. Submitted to the 13th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2000), September 2000.
 
• CybreMinder: A Context-Aware System for Supporting Reminders

(abstract, pdf, postscript)
Anind K. Dey and Gregory D. Abowd
Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing (HUC2K), Bristol, UK, September 25-27, 2000. pp. 172-186.
 
• The Context Toolkit: Aiding the Development of Context-Aware Applications

(pdf, postscript)
Anind K. Dey and Gregory D. Abowd
In the Workshop on Software Engineering for Wearable and Pervasive Computing , Limerick, Ireland, June 6, 2000.
 
• Enabling the Use of Context in Interactive Applications

(pdf, postscript)
Anind K. Dey
Doctoral Consortium paper in the Proceedings of the 2000 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2000), The Hague, The Netherlands, April 1-6, 2000, pp. 79-80.
 
• The What, Who, Where, When and How of Context-Awareness

(pdf, postscript)
David R. Morse, Anind K. Dey and Stephen Armstrong, Workshop Organizers
Workshop abstract in the Proceedings of the 2000 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2000), The Hague, The Netherlands, April 1-6, 2000, p. 371.
 
• Proceedings of the CHI 2000 Workshop on "The What, Who, Where, When and How of Context Awareness

(abstract and link to papers)
David R. Morse and Anind K. Dey, Workshop Organizers
GVU Technical Report GIT-GVU-00-18.
 
• Towards a Better Understanding of Context and Context-Awareness

(abstract, pdf, postscript)
Anind K. Dey and Gregory D. Abowd.
In the Workshop on The What, Who, Where, When, and How of Context-Awareness, as part of the 2000 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2000), The Hague, The Netherlands, April 3, 2000. Also GVU Technical Report GIT-GVU-99-22. Submitted to the 1st International Symposium on Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing (HUC '99), June 1999.
 
• The Conference Assistant: Combining Context-Awareness with Wearable Computing

(abstract, pdf, postscript)
Anind K. Dey, Masayasu Futakawa, Daniel Salber and Gregory D. Abowd.
In the Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC '99), San Francisco, CA, October 20-21, 1999. pp. 21-28.
 
• A Context-based Infrastructure for Smart Environments

(abstract, pdf, postscript)
Anind K. Dey, Daniel Salber and Gregory D. Abowd.
In the Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Managing Interactions in Smart Environments (MANSE '99), Dublin, Ireland, December 13-14, 1999. pp. 114-128.
 
• An Architecture To Support Context-Aware Applications

(abstract, pdf, postscript)
Anind K. Dey, Daniel Salber, Masayasu Futakawa and Gregory D. Abowd.
GVU Technical Report GIT-GVU-99-23. Submitted to the 12th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST '99), June 1999.
 
• Towards a Better Understanding of Context and Context-Awareness

Gregory D. Abowd and Anind K. Dey, Panel Moderators
(pdf, postscript)
Panel at the 1st International Symposium on Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing (HUC '99). Panelists are: Peter Brown (University of Kent at Canterbury), Nigel Davies (University of Lancaster), Pete Steggles (AT&T Laboratories, Cambridge) and Mark Smith (HP Laboratories, Palo Alto). September 27-29, 1999. pp. 304-307.
 
• The Context Toolkit: Aiding the Development of Context-Enabled Applications

(HTML, pdf)
Daniel Salber, Anind K. Dey and Gregory D. Abowd.
In the Proceedings of the 1999 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '99), Pittsburgh, PA, May 15-20, 1999. pp. 434-441.
 
• Designing for Ubiquitous Computing: A Case Study in Context Sensing

(abstract, pdf, postscript)
Daniel Salber, Anind K. Dey, Rob J. Orr and Gregory D. Abowd.
GVU Technical Report GIT-GVU-99-29. Submitted to the 1999 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '99), July 1999.
 
• The Design and Use of a Generic Context Server

(pdf)
Daniel Salber and Gregory D. Abowd.
In the Proceedings of the Perceptual User Interfaces Workshop (PUI '98), San Francisco, CA, November 5-6, 1998. pp. 63-66.

Related Publications

• Building a Better Intercom: Context-Mediated Communication within the Home

(abstract, pdf, postscript)
Cory D. Kidd, Thomas O'Connell, Kris Nagel, Sameer Patil and Gregory D. Abowd
GVU Technical Report GIT-GVU-00-27.

• Supporting Capture and Access Interfaces for Informal and Opportunistic Meeting

(abstract, pdf, postscript)
Jason Brotherton, Gregory D. Abowd and Khai Truong
GVU Technical Report GIT-GVU-99-06.

Projects (Updated 11/09/2002)

Applications

• the In Out Board described above
• an information display that shows a user standing in front of it, a URL related to the research group that they are in
• Dummbo, an augmented whiteboard, described above. More information here
• a context-aware mailing list that only sends an incoming email to those people who are currently in the building
• a Conference Assistant that aids users when attending a conference. More information here
• CybreMinder, a context-aware system that supports the creation, delivery, and handling of reminders. More information here
• a series of demonstration applications for the Aware Home, including the Smart Intercom
• Augmented Wheelchair, a context-aware communication system that uses context to improve word prediction for mobile and speech-impaired users. More information here and here

Contributed Components

• GPS context widget from British Telecom Labs

Documentation (Updated 9/12/2000)

Also, a mailing list has been created to aid developers using the Context Toolkit. To join, send a message to majordomo@cc.gatech.edu, with a line in the body of the message that says: subscribe ctk 

Download Information  (Updated 2/24/2000)