Sentient computers and PDA respond to their position and speed

IT: From the Econ­o­mist, sen­tient com­put­ing sounds like per­va­sive com­put­ing with a Euro­pean twist:

By adding sen­sors to today’s com­put­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­ogy, sen­tient com­put­ing seeks to take account of a machine’s envi­ron­ment in order to make it more respon­sive and use­ful. Sen­tient com­put­ing sys­tems are always on, ubiq­ui­tously avail­able, and can adapt to their users. In short, they seek to become real help-mates. To quote a Euro­pean Com­mis­sion report, the aim is to cre­ate ‘con­vivial tech­nolo­gies that are easy to live with.’

… Sim­i­larly, Microsoft researchers have given wire­less PDAs (per­sonal dig­i­tal assis­tants) new user inter­faces by adding tilt sen­sors and accelerom­e­ters. Users can scroll through doc­u­ments by tip­ping the PDA back and forth—as if they were con­trol­ling the ball-bearing in a toy maze. Lift­ing the PDA to the ear cre­ates sen­sor out­puts that cause the device to make a phone call. Researchers have even used the accelerom­e­ters to recog­nise walk­ing pat­terns so that the PDA can decide whether to accept or divert a phone call.

Tagged as: ADA, EU, Europe, interface, iPhone, mac, Microsoft, mobile, pda, phone, research, system, technology, toy, usability, wireless