JANUS: A Ubiquitous Personal Assistant for the Post-wired World

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JANUS A Ubiquitous Personal Assistant for the
Post-wired World

• David Martin, AIC
• Mark Pendrith, ITAD
• SRI International
• 2001/04/25

www.ai.sri.com/janus
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Preamble
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Janus A Multifaceted Vision

• A dedicated, proactive, virtual assistant
• Knows enough about its user and her activities
  context to be genuinely helpful
• Brokers access to the worlds of information
  smart devices
• Allows computing resources to be integrated with
  human activities

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Need

• Pervasive computation
• Wireless always on networks
• Proliferation of smart devicesand Net resources
• Web content x2 every 100 days
• 50M wireless subscribers by 2004

• Critical challenges
• How to manage interactions with all those devices
• How to maximize benefit from available resources
• Without being overwhelmed by all the bits

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Connectivity and Synthesis
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Connectivity and Synthesis
Like a good Human Assistant, Janus prioritizes,
filters and synthesizes information from personal
and external realms.
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Connectivity and Synthesis
And coordinates your use of resources, based on
extensive knowledge of your activities and
preferences.
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What Does Janus Offer?(Whats missing from
existing efforts?)

• Deep personalization
• Activity modeling
• Preferences
• Deep context
• Proactivity
• Learning

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Activity Modeling

• Relationships between sub-activities
• Relationships with information
• Roles of other people
• Collaborative activities (User/co-workers)
• Collaborative activities (User/Janus)
• Advisable

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Context Understanding

• Three identified sub-contexts Spatial, Task and
  Dialog
• Observation A change of focus in one sub-context
  can indicate changes in others
• But tracking the state of any sub context is
  computationally hard

Tasks Plans Goals
Physical Space
Human-System Dialog
SUB-CONTEXTS
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Context Trees
IDEA Structure contextual states into trees
divide and conquer computational
complexity of decision processes
. . .
DP
In Car
DP
Not Moving
Moving
Parked
In traffic
DP
Constant speed
Accelerating
Decelerating
DP
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Architecture
Interoperabilty / Brokering
Presentation Planning / Device Awareness
NL / Dialog
Task Mgr
Place Mgr
KB
ContextUnderstanding
Reasoning
Learning
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Dramatic Commercial Potential

• Widespread applicability
• Personal assistant
• Business assistant
• Mobile Portal / Device integration niches
• Educational aide
• Job training virtual mentor
• Mobile Applications
• Field work virtual expert / assistant
• Travel companion
• Special needs
• Assisting the very old and the very young
• Monitoring medical conditions and treatment

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Summary Opportunity

• As we move into the age of ubiquitous
  processors, SRI is leading the way by
• Developing one of the first powerful models for
  ubiquitous computing
• Demonstrating the value of key concepts
• Extensive shared context
• Synergy of advanced technologies
• Companion as broker
• Uncovering new venues and uses for our advanced
  technologies