Ubicomp is dead! Long live (ubiquitous) computing!

We are coming to the end of an era – like the Moore’s law is ending or becoming irrelevant [1] the same can be said about Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp). The author’s main claim is that ubicomp is outlived his days as a niche research topic and it should be seen as computing in general [2]. He states that because of its multidisciplinary nature, as ubiquitous computing addresses whole range of different issues, it’s getting harder and harder to even identify which constitutes as ubicomp research. Author references heavily to Weiser’s article [3], published during personal computer revolution, which defined the concept of ubiquitous computing. Although there are some aspects which Weisner did not envision (like the coming of the smartphone), the overall argument that most important research topics are those that disappear to multidisciplinary research still hold. Does this mean there’s a shift in ubiquitous computing research or overall “disappearance” of it? 

Abowd emphasises the “hacking in the real world” and “do-it-yourself” mentality which means that research is moving out of the lab setting to the real world and into the hands of non “tech-savvy” people. As this transition happened with personal computing by the mid-1990’s the ubiquitous community is still waiting for it’s HyperCard [4].

Author states as the first generation provided one computer to many individuals, the second generation provided one computer per individual, the third generation many computers per individual. He predicts that the fourth generation does not abide to the division of relationship between computing device and individual. When coming back to Moore’s law the the third generation already proved the irrelevance of the law before it was outlived. The number of transistors which can be mounted to a chip didn’t matter anymore, the question was how many can be fitted into a computer cluster. With ubiquitous computing, “presentless” devices and machine learning I can see the term of computing between individual and device already starting to be irrelevant.

I’m being a bit biased when critiquing the paper because I share the same background as the author and I’ve worked in the fields [5] of which he augments his case, so for most points I agree with him. Referencing back to the thought that ubicomp is searching for it’s HyperCard, I would say that with the coming of the smartphone, out of the box working sensor kits [6], visual programming [7][8] environments and the Internet-of-Things (IoT) in mind, this might be irrelevant already. The information in already available, the question is how do interpret and apply it to different applications.  

For this week I identified a paper called “A Visible Light-based Positioning System”.  The reason why I chose this paper is because it’s connected to my research in the field of indoor localisation and because the solution truly embraces ubiquitous resources from the medium.

 

[1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/04/economist-explains-17.

[2] Abowd, G.D. What next, ubicomp? celebrating an intellectual disappearing act. In Proc. Ubicomp 2012, ACM Press (2012), 31-40.

[3] Weiser, M. Some computer science issues in ubiquitous computing. Communications of the ACM 36, 7 (1993).

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard

[5] http://hdl.handle.net/10062/43112.

[6] DiSalvo, C., Nourbakhsh, I., Holstius, D., Akin, A., and Louw, M. The Neighborhood Networks Project: A Case Study of Critical Engagement and Creative Expression through Participatory Design. In Proc. PDC 2008, ACM Press (2008), 41-50.

[7] http://www.ni.com/labview/.

[8] http://www.lego.com/en-us/mindstorms/?domainredir=mindstorms.lego.com