The Context Toolkit
A toolkit for context-aware applications
Anind K. Dey (anind@cc.gatech.edu)
Gregory D. Abowd
(abowd@cc.gatech.edu)
On this page:
Overview
The Context Toolkit aims at facilitating the development and deployment
of context-aware applications.
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
The PersonNamePresence
context widget senses the presence of a user and is able to identify her.
It relies on a sensor that provides both presence and identity information.
In the current implementation, we use iButtons
that users snap in a reader to notify their presence. Each button has a
unique ID from which we derive the user's 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
A reader is mounted at the entrance of our lab. Whenever we come in or
out, we dock our iButton. We have used this presence and identity information
to build a simple in/out board. It is standing on the receptionist desk.
We also used the web gateway service of the toolkit to provide a web version
(#1: CRB, #2:
CCB).
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 1/9/2001)
-
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
-
Securing Context-Aware Applications Using Environment Roles
(abstract, pdf, postscript)
Michael J. Covington, Wende Long, Srividhya Srinivasan, Anind K. Dey,
Mustaque Ahamad and Gregory D. Abowd
Georgia Tech Technical Report GIT-CC-00-29.
-
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 11/24/2000)
A number of applications/projects have been built/augmented with the Context
Toolkit. This includes:
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
Contributed Components
Documentation
(Updated 9/12/2000)
The Context Toolkit now has a user's
guide! This contains a tutorial
(updated 3/15/00), an installation
guide (updated 09/12/00) and source
code documentation (updated 2/24/00).
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)
The first public release of the Context Toolkit is now available. If you
would like to obtain the toolkit, please contact Anind
Dey.
A maintenance
update to the first release is now available.
