User-Centric Conflict Management for Media Services Using Personal Companions

In this paper, we propose a user-centric conflict management method for media services which exploits personal companions for the harmonious detection and resolution of service conflicts. To detect conflicts based on the varying characteristics of individual users, the proposed method exploits the unified context describing all users attempting to access media services. It recommends and mediates users' preferred media contents through a shared screen and personal companions to resolve the detected conflicts. During the recommendation, a list of preferred media contents is displayed on the shared screen, and a personally preferred content list is shown on the user's personal companion comprising the selection of media contents. Mediation assists the selection of a consensual service by gathering the users' selections and highlighting the common media contents. In experiments carried out in a ubiHome, we observed that recommendations and mediation are useful in harmoniously resolving conflicts by encouraging user participation in conflict situations.