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Augmented reality is modifying the view of reality by a computer. It is the use of technology to enhance a user’s perception of reality and involves being aware of context and communicating context; this is a key part of human interaction. To create compelling user experience requires a great deal of research into the understanding of consumer behaviour and needs. Convenience is the number one achievement when creating a device. Less complications means it’s more appealing. The key to making context work is when the design is people-centred. This will work out what they want, what their preferences are, what target market is out there and who to aim for. This is very important when creating and device as well as creating experiences for the customers. Context-awareness can make computing devices more responsive to individual needs and help to intelligently personalize apps and services. Intel’s vision of the future sees the computer becoming adapted to a person enhancing their lifestyle and helping them make important choices. There many examples include using information gathered on your location, and your previous preferences of food they can guide you to a restaurant nearby which can accommodate your preferences. It can improve your health and fitness by taking all the information about your activities, eating habits and giving you guidance and recommendations to suit you. The remote control of your TV could be used in context aware by identifying the person that is holding it and displaying options suited to that viewer. All of these are aims for the future.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Denial of Service Attacks: This is where a machine or group of machines attack a system by 'flooding' it with many bogus requests which usually lead to this attacked machines becoming 'tied up' and thus failing.
Location Based Services: These are services which are dependent on the context or location of the user. These are more common now as most mobile devices possess an inbuilt GPS unit.
Wearables: Smartwatches and other wearables will become more ubiquitous. Currently they are paired with an external smartphone and we can expect to see this continue but the battery life, ease of use, looks, features improve.
Sleep Deprivation: These attacks are a form of denial of service attack whereby an attacker renders a pervasive computing device inoperable by draining the battery more quickly than it would be drained under normal usage.
Usability: This focuses on the creating of the system making sure it is useable. Using the user’s experiences and the factors involved this helps to create a better view into the development of technology, and help provide and maintain a better experience for the user with future technologies.
Soft Sensor (also Virtual Sensor): Is a common name for software where several measurements are processed together. There may be dozens or even hundreds of measurements. The interaction of the signals can be used for calculating new quantities that need not be measured.
Augmented Reality: This is the use of technology to enhance a user’s perception of reality and involves being aware of context and communicating context; this is a key part of human interaction.
Context Awareness: This is a property of mobile devices that is defined complementary to location awareness. Whereas location may determine how certain processes in a device operate, context may be applied more flexibly with mobile users, especially with users of smart phones.
Activity Recognition: Aims to recognize the actions and goals of one or more users from a series of observations on the users' actions and their environmental conditions.