Monday, February 21, 2005
Unwanted context awareness
Google have come under criticism (see The Times Online) recently for their AutoLink system, which automatically inserts relevant links into the web page you're looking at, so that addresses become hotlinked to maps, ISBN numbers to Amazon product listings etc. Sounds like a good idea to me! But the objection is that it is Google who determine what links should be used, so they choose the map provider, they choose Amazon over Blackwells etc. Context aware applications can provide us with much needed help and support right where we need it most: just under our mouse pointers, but ultimately we as users need to be the ones in control of what help is provided, otherwise we're just signing up a new form of advertising.
Google have come under criticism (see The Times Online) recently for their AutoLink system, which automatically inserts relevant links into the web page you're looking at, so that addresses become hotlinked to maps, ISBN numbers to Amazon product listings etc. Sounds like a good idea to me! But the objection is that it is Google who determine what links should be used, so they choose the map provider, they choose Amazon over Blackwells etc. Context aware applications can provide us with much needed help and support right where we need it most: just under our mouse pointers, but ultimately we as users need to be the ones in control of what help is provided, otherwise we're just signing up a new form of advertising.
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(c) 2003-2005 Russell Beale
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