Related Work on Context-Aware Systems Kostas Stefanidis Evaggelia Pitoura Department of Computer Science, University of Ioannina, Greece {kstef, pitoura}@cs.uoi.gr In this work in-progress report, we survey work related to context-aware systems and applications. 1 Types of Context Aware Applications Schilit [1] notes that three important aspects of context are: where you are, who you are with, and what resources are nearby. Context encompasses more than just the user’s location, because other things of interest are also mobile and changing. Context includes lighting, noise level, network connectivity, commu- nication costs, communication bandwidth, and even the social situation; e.g., whether you are with your manager or with a co-worker. Context has been tied to ubiquitous computing, although the term has had sev- eral meanings that differ subtly. One challenge of mobile distributed computing is to exploit the changing environment with a new class of applications that are aware of the context in which they are run. Such context-aware software adapts according to the location of use, the collection of nearby people, hosts, and accessible devices, as well as to changes to such things over time. A system with these capabilities can examine the computing environment and react to changes to the environment. Schilit [1] defines context-aware computing, and describes the four categories of context-aware applications: (a) proximate selection, (b) automatic contextual reconfiguration, (c) contextual information and commands, and (d) context- triggered actions. Proximate Selection Proximate selection is a user interface technique where the located-objects that are nearby are emphasized or otherwise made easier to choose. In general, proximate selection involves entering two variables, the locus and the selection. However, of particular interest are user interfaces that automatically default the locus to the user’s current location. There are at least three kinds of located-objects that are interesting to select 1