Context awareness is the current buzz in the constant quest to differentiate the smartphone user experience. Location and presence are old hat, and now devices must be aware of a whole range of user preferences and surroundings, and adjust accordingly.

Qualcomm is interested in this area, as in most aspects of the future user experience, which it seeks to influence and to optimize on its own silicon. Its subsidiary, Qualcomm Labs, has announced its first major licensing deal for its Gimbal context awareness platform, which aims to power new 'hyper-local' mobile applications. The unit has partnered with two Japanese firms, Recruit Holdings and Dentsu, and their joint venture Blogwatcher. The trio will gain exclusivity in Japan for certain geofence and interest profile capabilities of Gimbal, and this marks the first large scale commercial use of the technology.

The provides always-on, low power tools for geofencing and interest triggers, says Qualcomm, enabling apps which can deliver information and experiences adapted to the user's location, time of day, activities and interests. Like location awareness, these capabilities can be integrated into services such as social networking to create a next step on from SoLo (social location), and so are likely to be adopted by the major web platforms such as Google.

They will also promise to support micro-targeted advertising and promotions, creating revenue streams for those platforms. Dentsu plans to use Gimbal as part of an integrated marketing solution for clients while Recruit and Blogwatcher will offer it to their developer customers, also focused on advertising. In addition, Blogwatcher, a specialist in managing and interpreting social media behavior, will power its commercial mobile service, wityou, using Gimbal - this aims to provide relevant information based on location and learned interests over time.

Trials conducted by Blogwatcher in Japan found that users were three times more likely to click-through and respond to wityou notifications and offers compared with non-contextualized and non-personalized offers. Click-through rates increased by more than 60% when commercial offers were delivered to customers using geofences sized below 100 meters around the locations making the offer. Blogwatcher plans to start the trial service in China in January.