Researchers coordinate each area of investigation in this program with the other areas. Although research in this area is still in the early stages, certain trends are emerging. Relieving users of this burden means that systems have to take on the responsibility.
Smarter systems mean smarter software.
Context-aware applications take information about a user obtained from sensors to tailor the application. Other contextual information might include the number and identity of people in a room. As our ability to obtain more sensory information increases, programmers will have to write flexible software to query the sensor data or perhaps use a context toolkit to develop dynamically tailored services. Xerox PARC Affective computing uses sensory input to glean information about a user's emotional or physical state to determine issues such as how users respond to interruptions by the system, how much help a user needs, and how best to deliver that help. Interesting, both context-aware and affective computing imply that the programmer will have to work with uncertainty.