The Magitti* activity-aware leisure guide: opportunity discovery, innovation and new technology platform development at PARC

We describe an example of PARC's innovation services for corporate clients. The project was undertaken for Dai Nippon Printing Co. Ltd. (DNP), to assist them in developing a new opportunity beyond their traditional printing business. The Magitti solution*, developed at PARC in close collaboration with DNP personnel, was designed to be synergistic with DNP's existing strengths in the publishing industry whilst incorporating the latest in context- and activity-aware computing techniques to recommend published content. We explain our market and opportunity discovery fieldwork and innovation exercises, as well as the system components and user experience and an early field evaluation. We also discuss ways in which new techniques and technologies were successfully transferred to DNP. 

*Magitti is an electronic mobile leisure guide that presents options for things to do, filtered by how well they match current interests. Users don't have to tell Magitti what they are doing; it uses an inference engine to figure this out for itself. Interests are inferred from time, location, past behavior, and predicted activity type. Taste profiles and preferences can be dynamically adjusted to further improve recommendations. Over time, Magitti learns from behavior to make its recommendations more personally targeted.