Situation-aware mobile assistance

Ultraportable mobile computers provide electronic assistance for environments and usage situations, where computer support up to now has not been feasible. For the first time, a true physical and cognitive integration of computer support into the everyday business of the real world becomes possible, as envisioned in Mark Weiser's concept of "ubiquitous computing" (Weiser, 1993). However, although handheld PCs etc. already support a good deal of personal information management and basic access to distributed multimedia information services such as the World Wide Web, they are still surprisingly difficult to use to their full potential. Specifically, lengthy interaction sequences and the inability to find quickly that important piece of information which is embedded somewhere in the machine sometimes make using those devices a very disappointing experience. In this chapter, we outline a new approach to realizing easy-to-use personal digital assistant systems, based on the concept of Situation Awareness. Using knowledge about task structures, situation dependencies and task contexts, our concept allows a mobile assistant to proactively provide the right information at the right time and the right place, without intruding upon the user's primary task: interacting with reality.