Method and apparatus for context-aware delivery of informational content on ambient displays

An apparatus comprising:

• a display;
• a processor coupled to the display;
• software means operative on the processor for:
• gathering user context information at a context source;
• registering an ambient display application to notify the ambient display application of the user context information from the context source;
• determining a current user context based on the user context information, where a current user context includes at least one of a current user location, a current time, and a current user activity;
• determining a user interest metric of the user based on historical user patterns;
• and
• selecting whether or not to display notification content in an ambient display on a display device via at least one of a serial consumption model and a parallel consumption model based on the current user context and based on the user interest metric to highlight specific content that is likely to be of most immediate interest to the user, where the ambient display passively displays the notification content without requiring user input,
• wherein a serial consumption model displays information items in sequence, and a parallel consumption model displays information items concurrently.