Talk:Context awareness

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What's the difference between context aware and sentiment computing?

The difference IMO is that context-awareness is more than a computer science topic, and sentient computing does show one aspect, but recently, the area has branched out into non-computing subjects such as business process design. I am removing the merge tags based on this, and will cleanup and expand on the non-computing aspects of context-awareness here. Ansell 21:07, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the problem in defining the difference is largely down to one's interpretation of the term context. Sentient computing uses sensors to adapt the system in response to changes in the physical world. Context-aware computing defines certain states (contexts). If the system enters a state then it reacts to alter the system in some way. IMO context-aware computing is a branch of sentient computing since it also uses sensors to define a state.

As an example, consider a room R and two contexts (states) C1 and C2. C1 states that if the temperature is less than 18 degrees celsius then the heating should be switched on, C2 states that if the temperature is greater than 22 degrees then the heating should be switched off. Lets assume R starts in context C2, as the temperature drops R belongs to C1 thus the heating is turned on.