Surfing the city: An architecture for context aware urban exploration

Web surfing, the act of following links of interest with no pre-defined search goal, is a paradigm that can be translated to the physical realm of urban exploration. With mobile computing technology and its supporting infrastructure becoming ever more ubiquitous, a user's digital device can be transformed into a portal that connects their physical environment with the virtual, providing instant access to a plethora of information that can influence and guide their interactions with the city. This paper describes the technical aspects of a context-aware system for urban exploration based on the paradigm of web surfing. An implementation is presented that demonstrates a browsing style of interaction with an urban environment through context-based navigational prompts.