A location-based service (LBS) can be described as an application that is dependent on a certain location. Two broad categories of LBS can be defined as triggered and user-requested. In a user-requested scenario, the user is retrieving the position once and uses it on subsequent requests for location-dependent information. This type of service usually involves either personal location (i.e. finding where you are) or services location (i.e. where is the nearest ...). Examples of this type of LBS are navigation (usually involving a map) and direction (routing information). A triggered LBS by contrast relies on a condition set up in advance that, once fulfilled, retrieves the position of a given device. An example is when the user passes across the boundaries of the cells in a mobile network. Another example is in emergency services, where the call to the emergency centre triggers an automatic location request from the mobile network.

Interest in location-based service (LBS) standards began in the 1990s with the more advanced second generation cellular systems - particularly in GSM. There has been a general drive from mobile operators to increase their average revenue per user (ARPU), and by the late 1990s it was clear that the cellular markets were fast approaching the saturation point in terms of customer penetration rates. Therefore the only way to further increase the turnover of mobile operators was to raise their ARPU by the successful provision of more value-added services, such as the LBS. Mobile systems, such as GSM, have always been heavily driven by standards so as to achieve full interoperability between different suppliers as well as international roaming on to foreign networks. The focus for GSM standards developments through out the 1990s was the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Special Mobile Group (SMG). However, for certain specialist functions, such as the development of end-to-end protocol solutions between mobiles, ETSI SMG has worked with other groups such as the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Forum.

This chapter reports on the state-of-the-art as far as content negotiation, capability and preference profiles description standards is concerned and describes a proposal for a presence-aware personalisation system. Enhancements to mobile communications systems, in order to support presence-awareness concepts, are introduced. Collecting profile data, together with keeping it up to date with the changing needs and context of the user, are important issues.

With such a diverse client base at present (which is expected to increase in the future), Internet service providers must consider how to create suitable content and a seamless service to the customer's preferred device. Present methods for determining client characteristics are ill defined and range from proprietary solutions to device-inferencing techniques. This is presently acceptable because, in part, most users' Internet experience is via the desktop computer, which has been the focus of most Web site and application design, and because the use of alternative devices such as personal digital assistants (PDA) and WAP-enabled mobile telephones has been limited. With predictions that mobile Internet access will exceed fixed line (desktop) during 2003, the demand for device-specific tailored content will increase and Web sites that can deliver such content will be the focus of much more Internet traffic. The demands placed by this new generation of devices means that present solutions for determining client characteristics will be inadequate. Existing techniques, such as proprietary software (e.g. the AvantGo [1] browser) or inferring from information passed to the Web server (e.g. user-agent information included in the HTTP [2] packet header), are acceptable but not ideal. As the term implies, not all devices will support proprietary software and inferring characteristics from HTTP header information is problematic when devices with similar software have different characteristics or support for different media types. A better solution is to have the device characteristics passed to the server where information content can be tailored to the client's requirements. As more devices and services become available the industry will have to seriously consider how best to support such a widening range of devices. If not, there may be problems with interoperability/compatibility between services, applications and devices. This may lead to a fragmented rather than unifying Internet experience for the majority of users.

Before Gutenburg and others made printing relatively cheap and easy, stories were related through story-tellers and travelling minstrels. The stories thus told were probably never the same twice. The art of the telling would have been to involve, interact and respond to the audience. This art has, to a large degree, been lost. The most popular medium for story telling today is the television, and in television the story-teller does not know who is watching and has very little chance to involve or react to them. Television programmes such as Big Brother and Pop Idol both attempt to involve the audience and react to it through voting. These programmes have both proved very popular and are perhaps a testament to the audience's nascent desire to interact with a story line. As broadband connectivity grows, and as television and the Internet continue to converge, new forms of such interactive, involving and personalised television will emerge. This chapter describes some early results from a set of prototype tools and an associated software architecture that, by using object-based media techniques, allows television programming to be personalised.

This chapter has described a software system that offers a complete solution for Web communities, in terms of an integrated package for communal as well as personalised services. The Pl@za 3.5 with Knowledge Browser tool-kit comprises components for discussion groups, on-line chats, shared folders, event management, surveys and messaging, as well as personalised services (profile manager, newspaper, contact finder, reference provider). The personal agents help to promote site 'stickiness' and brand loyalty, while the Pl@za Knowledge Browser is an example of a successful integration of personal agent technology, intelligent middleware, and flexible eCommunity platform into a commercial product. The integration was conducted in a manner that preserved the strong features of the independent sub-systems, while the final system operates as one seamless unit resulting from the co-operation between all modules.

In this chapter, an agent-based approach to developing location-based asynchronous group decision support systems is proposed, mPower (a system based on that approach) is introduced, and the way in which the above challenges can be resolved is discussed. The mPower application adopts a multi-agent system (MAS) approach. The MAS is considered a key technology to support distributed teams. Intelligent, autonomous agents can collaborate to provide opportunities to reduce communications costs, combat information overload, and improve response times [1,2]. The mPower system contains agents that interact to support distributed group decision-making processes. Each user of the system is supported by an agent that acts as their personal assistant, tracking their current position and using that information to automate part of the group decision-making process. The personal agent behaves independently of the user, according to a predefined decision-support policy, negotiating with other agents to exchange information as and when necessary. The autonomous characteristics of multi-agent systems are essential to facilitate asynchronous GDSS, as occasionally users cannot contribute in a timely manner to all the decision-making processes in which they are involved.