In addition, the concept of presence has been
extended to include various other dimensions. For example: Availability: It allows an end
user to explicitly share their availability to communicate with their colleagues (Gurbani,
Faynberg, Lu, Brusilovsky, Gato, & Unmehopta, 2003). Typical availability states include
out of office, in a meeting with a client, in a conference call, on vacation, and so forth. An
end user can provide this information, or it can be inferred from the end user??™s online calendar.
Other dimensions include Location: geographical location of an end user??™s device.
Wireless networks can triangulate signal strength measurements to provide the location
of wireless handsets and PDAs. Instant messaging clients is another dimension where the
concept of location was extended to laptop-based, instant messaging clients, or IP softphones
that might connect to wireline access networks at work, home, or remote locations (Sun,
2002). Presence server and presence policies are important dimensions which determine
the ability of the end user to control access to their presence and location information, using
the presence server in conjunction with their presence policy. The presence server, in
accordance with the end user??™s policy, provides the presence and location information to
various presence applications.
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