Gander: Personalizing Search of the Here and Now

Abstract

Abstract. In Personalized Networked Spaces (PNets), people and devices are integrated with the environment and demand fluid interactions to enable connectivity to information, services, and people. PNet applications exhibit significant spatiotemporal demands in which connectivity to resources and information is personalized and focused on the here and now. We introduce Gander, a personalized search engine for the here and now. We examine how search expectations are affected when users and applications interact directly with the physical environment. We define a formal conceptual model of search in PNets that provides a clear definition of the framework and ultimately enables reasoning about relationships between search processing and the relevance of results. We assess our model by evaluating sophisticated Gander queries in a simulated PNet.

Gander: Mobile, Pervasive Search <italic>of</italic> the Here and Now <italic>in</italic> the Here and Now

“…2) to support search of pervasive computing spaces [2]. This evaluation was done through a realistic simulation involving 20,000 mobile visitors emulated in a day-long visit to an amusement park, in which the visitors issued queries about the wait times for rides using constraints based on distance from the querier and relative to other venues (e.g., other attractions or food vendors).…”

“…In this section, we review the Gander conceptual model [2] and introduce a structural data model for pervasive computing spaces, which defines the substrate over which queries execute. We give brief examples of datums and queries over them; our examples are taken from a pervasive computing application that enables a user carrying a mobile device at a parade to search for information related to his experience.…”

“…Continuing our example, a pervasive computing space may include datums generated by food vendors indicating their menus, prices, and locations; datums may be generated by "things" such as park benches, providing static information such as location and dynamic information such as the current shade conditions. We have formalized the Gander query model previously [2]; here we provide a comprehensive summary of that model. Our model relies on partial functions, which are not required to be defined for every element of their domains.…”

“…Contributions: As a starting point to address these needs, we have previously introduced the Gander conceptual model [2] for expressive search in the here and now. This prior work formalized the Gander model and the search algorithms that underpin the Gander search engine.…”

Mobilizing search of the here and now

“…To this end, we have developed Gander, a search engine for PNetS [4], and myGander, a prototype user interface and mobile application for Gander [5]. Gander is founded on a novel conceptual model that does not index data relative to its context, but instead performs a query in the context.…”