Asim Smailagic, Research Professor, Carnegie Mellon

Asim Smailagic wants everyone to have a personal assistant. Thirteen years ago, the research professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Institute for Complex Engineering Systems and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering helped create the first wearable computers. Now his team is turning mobile phones into cognitive assistants capable of taking or refusing calls based on a user's current activity and location.

SenSay (incorporating “sensing” and “saying”) is a context-aware phone that modifies ringer volume, vibration and alerts using sensors within the phone and on an armband the user can wear almost anywhere.

“Many people are aware of the shortcomings that happen during cell phone usage when it starts ringing during an important meeting, when you're in the theater or some other occasion,” Smailagic said. “Making computers aware of your state — using knowledge about typical activities during the day, typical routes you take during the day, typical meetings you attend during the day and what the user is going to do next — is a major advancement.”

The SenSay phone “senses” the user's activity, location and availability with the aid of an accelerometer and a heat-flux sensor that measure activity level, a location sensor that uses a pre-programmed calendar to determine location, and a skin-response sensor that measures conductivity between two points on the user's arm to determine excitement, boredom or other emotions. A Bluetooth microphone detects speech, and a light sensor detects whether the phone is in a pocket, a darkened room or in broad daylight. The phone itself resembles a small PDA, and communication between the armband and the small wearable computer is based on a standardized 802.11b protocol.

Smailagic said he's already contacting vendors to bring SenSay to the masses. “It is a natural evolution — going to computers as more personalized assistants and making computing human-centric.”