Adapting to the User

In the near future... Imagine a businessman preparing for a trip to some western metropolis to meet a customer. As usually, he organizes his trip via the World Wide Web checking how to get to his destination, finding reasonable accommodation and investigating things to do in his free time. To keep himself occupied during his journey, he might listen to his music collection while surfing the mobile Internet and reading emails. At his destination, he checks in at the hotel and enters his room, the heating and ambient light is adjusted to his preferences and in the morning, he expects to have a shower at his preferred temperature. At his customer’s premises, the meeting room is well prepared for his presentation, his preferred hot drink is waiting for him and the business cards are automatically transferred between the participating businessmen. This small scenario touches on many aspects of modern life, already in place or yet to come. For example, information acquisition via the World Wide Web, either stationary or mobile, interaction with intelligent infrastructures such as hotels or meeting rooms, and also IT supported interacabstract