StreetWise

Location-based Agent Assistance

Jim Youll, Joan Morris, Raffi Krikorian, Pattie Maes
jim@media.mit.edu, joanie@media.mit.edu, raffi@media.mit.edu, pattie@media.mit.edu

Abstract

In the physical world, a user experiences products and places, explores physical surroundings, and participates in location-specific activities. Software agents, trapped in their electronic world, offer users valuable assistance online, for example by personalizing searches and queries. The Impulse research project at the MIT Media Lab examines what happens when the rich experience of the physical world is augmented with the low search costs and information researches available through the Internet. This demo presents an implementation of one aspect of the Impulse vision. Called Streetwise, it is a scenario demonstrating a mobile device using location-aware queries to digitally augment and explore the physical world.

Publication

J. Youll, J. Morris, R. Krikorian, P. Maes. "Impulse: Location-based Agent Assistance" Software Demos, Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents 2000), Barcelona, Spain, June 3 - June 7, 2000.

Screenshots

A demonstration of StreetWise will be available online at http://www.media.mit.edu/agents/projects/impulse/streetwise.

Related Research

Impulse, a scenario of what happens when e-commerce merges with brick-and-mortar commerce.
InShop, like StreetWise, a demonstration of the Impulse vision.
WhereHoo, a search engine optimized for location-specific queries.

This research was conducted within the Software Agents group of the MIT Media Lab, through the sponsorship of the Digital Life and Things That Think consortiums and the e-Markets Special Interest Group. For more information about this and other related projects and the researchers, consult the Software Agents group pages.