Instant Knowledge: Leveraging information on portable devices

Context aware applications are seen as the future of intelligent service delivery, but while dasianetworkpsila context - the state of the userpsilas terminal and the communication network - is relatively easy to gather, mapping from this to user context - what the user wants to do in a certain set of circumstances - is very complex. Any solution which requires user input in order to define their context would be impractical and unwieldy. However, the ubiquity of the ever-present mobile phone makes it an ideal tool to gather context information which can be used by applications more intelligently. The Instant Knowledge programme of Mobile VCE aims to make available context information known to the communications network to applications in a secure manner. A particular emphasis is placed on social networking applications, where context relating to interactions can be gathered by the network with minimal user input. Such tools have important application in the enterprise environment where complex interactions between users abound, but directory-based information structures are very inefficient.