Context-Aware Applications - Guide to Cloud Computing for Business and Technology Managers - page 513

Context can also assist designers to develop mobile applications and
manage various interfaces and interaction techniques that would enable
more satisfactory and faster closure of transactions. Easiness is an impor-
tant requirement for mobile applications; by using context according to our
approach, designers are abstracted from the difficult task of context acquisi-
tion and have merely defined how context is exploited from various artifacts
by defining simple rules. Our approach presents an infrastructure capable
of handling, substituting, and combining complex interfaces when neces-
sary. The rules applied to the application's context and the reasoning process
support the application's adaptation. The presented ontology-based context
model is easily extended; new devices, new interfaces, and novel interaction
techniques can be exploited into a mobile application by simply incorporat-
ing their descriptions in the ontology.
23.4 Location-Based Service (LBS) Applications
Location-based services are services that are sensitive to and take advantage
of the location of the service user. Any service that makes use of the location
of the user can be called an Location-based service. The location of a person
can be determined using a GPS receiver or other technologies, now available
in many mobile phone platforms. This position determination technology
(PDT) is generally carried by the person, from which the location must be
provided to the Location-based service provider. Today, the Location-based
services are generally hosted in the network, which may pose performance
and scalability issues.
The uptake of mobile phones with PDT capabilities continues to grow, and
most mobile phone users have a phone that can be traced with good accuracy
and a lower cost. This new technology has given the Location-based service
market a greater push. LBSs can be divided into four categories:
1. Business to business
2. Business to consumer
3. Consumer to business
4. Consumer to consumer
The business-to-business services include fleet tracking and courier track-
ing. Business-to-consumer services include pushed ads based on the loca-
tion, where a user will receive ads most relevant to the location. Consumer
to business services include location-based search, where a user is search-
ing for the nearest restaurant, petrol pump, and so forth. A consumer-to-
consumer service is the friend finder service where the user will be alerted if
his friend is within a few meters (see Table 23.1).