Easishop: Ambient intelligence assists everyday shopping

E-commerce has been one of the success stories of the last decade. Developments in wireless communications and mobile computing have heralded an era of mobile commerce (m-commerce). Though a number of successful applications and services have been deployed, these are almost invariably inherently static in nature. By augmenting m-commerce with intelligent and autonomous components, the significant benefits of convenience and added value may be realized for the average shopper as they wander their local shopping mall or high street. By a selective and judicious juxtaposition of Ambient Intelligent (AmI) concepts and e-commerce precepts, the foundations for truly ubiquitous commerce (u-commerce) may be constructed. In this paper, the synergy between AmI and e-commerce is explored and developed, resulting in the description of a prototypical application that demonstrates the viability of this approach.