Are We There Yet? User-Centered Temporal Awareness

Abstract

It's not unreasonable to think that the technologies we use in our daily lives could help us make these sorts of decisions. For example, analysis of computer usage patterns can reveal our probable availability to colleagues. But, even better, it should be possible for devices to make some of these decisions for us while still leaving us with a comfortable level of control. We refer to such systems as exhibiting temporal awareness. One way to realize temporally aware computing in everyday use is via wearable devices. Such devices could collect time-related information from the items and environments we interact with and create a personal temporal model. They could then use this information to change our behavior.An example of temporal awareness in action, the AreWeThereYet? Player is a digital audio player that can compose a program of audio media likely to fit within the user's available listening time. AWTY estimates this time using the listener's current location and predicted destination as well as some knowledge of previous journeys.