Abstract. Current desktop environments provide weak support for carrying out complex user-oriented tasks. Although individual applications are becoming increasingly sophisticated and featurerich, users must map their high-level goals to the low-level operational vocabulary of applications, and deal with a myriad of routine tasks (such as keeping up with email, keeping calendars and web sites up-to-date, etc.). An alternative vision is that of a personal cognitive assistant. Like a good secretary, such an assistant would help users accomplish their high-level goals, coordinating the use of multiple applications, automatically handling routine tasks, and, most importantly, adapting to the individual needs of a user over time. In this paper we describe the architecture and its implementation for a personal cognitive assistant called RADAR. Key features include (a) extensibility through the use of a plug-in agent architecture (b) transparent integration with legacy applications and data of today’s desktop environments, and (c) extensive use of learning so that the environment adapts to the individual user over time.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under

the author and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of any sponsoring institution, the US government or any other entity. Vahe Poladian ii Tailoring Configuration to User’s Tasks under Uncertainty The expansion of computing infrastructure has opened the possibility of a world in which users can compute everywhere. Despite such advances, computing resources are often scarce and changing, limiting a user’s ability to take advantage of the applications and devices, and requiring changes to the application runtime settings. Currently, the burden of managing the computing environment (devices, applications, and resources) falls on the user. A user must manually start applications and adjust their settings according to the available resources. Assigning such chores of configuration to the user has a number of disadvantages. First, it consumes user’s precious cognitive resources. Second, effectively managing the environment requires skills that a typical user might not have. Third, even with adequate low-level expertise, managing the environment optimally (or even adequately) can be difficult.