Ubicomp

fifteen years on

Ian Hargraves

pp. 3-10

in: Knowledge, Technology & Policy 20 (1), 2007.

Abstrakt

This year marks 15 years since Mark Weiser, writing in Scientific American, gave popular expression to an idea that had been brewing for years in science fiction and in the visions of technologists. That idea was Ubiquitous Computing, or Ubicomp as it came to be known. Simply put, the idea of Ubicomp is to free technology from particular sites of use, such as desktop computers, and to widely distribute technology so that it becomes ubiquitous within the environment. Many of the papers presented in the current issue of this journal are variations on the idea of Ubicomp. It seems then a timely opportunity to review the vision that Weiser presented 15 years ago and to reflect on the varying ways in which that vision has been interpreted. Across interpretations, the technical potentialities of the networked world are ethically set beside the ways in which people live.