Distributed Context Processing for Intelligent Environments

This book is one of the early efforts in building a
real-life Intelligent Environment. The author dreams
that one day not only smart devices could communicate
with each other but also smart houses through
Context-Aware Computing (CAC) approach. CAC is a new
approach in software engineering for Intelligent
Environment. It is an approach in the design and
construction of a context-aware application that
exploits rapid changes in access to relevant
information and the availability of communication and
computing resources in the mobile computing
environment. The goal of CAC is to make interaction
between users and computers easier in a smart
environment, where technology is spread throughout
(pervasive), computers are everywhere at the same
time (ubiquitous) and technology is embedded
(ambient) to the environment. Context-aware
applications need not be difficult, tedious or
require the acquisition of new skills on the user
part. They should be safe, easy, simple to use and
should enable new functionality without the need to
learn new technology. This book also proposes the
evaluation of context-aware application to determine
what to test, how to test and the appropriate metrics
to use.