It is almost three decades since Mark Weiser coined the term "ubiquitous computing" at Xerox PARC around 1988. The paper The Computer for the 21st Century was published in 1991, and the first Ubiquitous and Handheld Computing (now UBICOMP) conference was organized in 1999. It is clear that some of the ubicomp vision has come to pass (e.g. ubiquitous handheld computing terminals) whereas other have failed (arguably, any notion of ”calm technology” and ”computers that get out of the way of the work”!) I’d like to take this seminar to discuss some of my top picks for success and failure in ubicomp, and I invite participants to come do the same!Homework: Think of at least one ubicomp success and one ubicomp failure, as they relate to the various visions of ubiquiotus/pervasive/invisible/etc. computing!
Lars Erik Holmquist is newly appointed Professor of Innovation at Northumbria University, Department of Design. He has worked in ubicomp and design research for 20 years, including as co-founder of The Mobile Life Centre in Sweden and Principal Scientist at Yahoo! Research in Silicon Valley. His book on how research can lead to useful results, "Grounded Innovation: Strategies for Developing Digital Products", was published by Morgan Kaufmann in 2012. Before joining Northumbria, he spent two years in Japan where he was a Guest Researcher at the University of Tokyo, learned Japanese, wrote a novel about augmented reality and played in the garage punk band Fuzz Things.
University of Nottingham School of Computer Science Nottingham, NG8 1BB
email: mrl@cs.nott.ac.uk