Methods and apparatus for ambient computing

1) A method of operating a personal intelligent agent in an ambient computing environment, comprising:

• receiving at least one input from at least one source;
• analyzing the at least one input to derive a personal preference of a user of the personal intelligent agent;
• associating the at least one personal preference with a first context indicator defining a context of the at least one input;
• determining whether the at least one personal preference is exposable according to an applicable level of privacy in a graded privacy scheme;
• responsive to determining that the at least one personal preference is exposable, storing the personal preference as an exposable personal preference with the associated first context indicator in a dedicated store indexed by context indicator;
• detecting when the personal intelligent agent enters a detectable context and responsively creating a second context indicator;
• determining if there is a match between the second context indicator and the first context indicator in the dedicated store;
• retrieving the exposable personal preference associated with the matched context indicator;
• creating an anonymous preference indicator comprising the exposable personal preference associated with the matched context indicator;
• emitting the anonymous preference indicator anonymously over a communication medium of the ambient computing environment;
• and
• monitoring the ambient computing environment to detect any broadcast message that indicates ability to satisfy the preference shown in the anonymous preference indicator.