Hippie: A Nomadic Information System

Hippie is a WWW-based nomadic information system that supports users before, during, and after a visit to exhibitions. The system models the visitor's knowledge, preferences, and interests and tracks his/her position while moving in the physical space with Infrared, electronic compass and DGPS technologies. Therefore the user-modeling component of Hippie enables the system to adapt presentations, recommend tours, or alert the visitor when he/she passes hotspots in the exhibition. The underlying metaphor of connecting information space and physical space is applicable in many fields and arouses new challenges for user modeling and user adaptive systems.