Pervasive Computing in the Supermarket: Designing a Context-Aware Shopping Trolley

2. Related Work

Context-aware computing has been characterized as the ability of an application to discover and react to changes in the environment (Schilit & Theimer, 1994). Here, the word environment is used synonymously with context, as the application is described as aware of its environment and reacting to changes in this environment. The purpose of context-aware applications in general is to provide task-relevant information and services to the user. The systems are designed to achieve this goal by autonomously updating in reaction to changes in their context. This has also been referred to as implicit human-computer interaction (Schmidt, 2001) as computers take action based on implicit user activity, e.g., moving from one location to another. As such, context-aware computing is often mentioned as a key component of Weiser’s vision of ubiquitous computing (Weiser, 1991).