One of the most interesting insights at this morning's introductory session came out of the question, "In the future, what will we think of as context aware-computing?"
The consensus is that context aware-computing isn't something that will be driven by preexisting information about users and places: context isn't just, or primarily, derived by looking up a bunch of formal attributes in a database. Rather, context should be seen as a function of interaction between users/objects and environment, and a consequence of focus or attention.
This means a few things.
First, "context" isn't something that programmers or designers can either thoroughly describe or comprehensively predict; it's something that emerges in the moment.
Second, context can change very rapidly. Making sense of context cannot merely be a matter of computers getting faster; it requires helping people, who are already better-equipped than any computer to figure out context.
In many ways, this view of context-aware computing resonates with assumptions behind the new social software-- e.g. social bookmarks, Flickr, and the other members of the collection of technologies and services that Wade Roush is tracking in his continuous computing work. I think this new generation of social software-- that differentiates it from knowledge management-- is shaped in part by a recognition that knowledge isn't just algorithms and data that can be put into computers, but is a deeply social activity.
Consequently, they're expansive and inviting, not limited to previously-defined communities (like workgroups). They're folksonomic rather than formalistic. They try to do what computers do well (like aggregate vast quantities of data), but not in a way that squashes what people do well (like build collective or tacit knowledge).
What our experts are saying is that context-aware computing needs to balance technical properties or data, with stuff that humans do. Context awareness won't be something that happens within a microprocessor; it'll be a product of the interaction of technology, digital information, people, and tacit knowledge.
Technorati Tags: collective_intelligence, mobility, place/space, ubicomp
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