What next, Ubicomp? Celebrating an intellectual disappearing act

According to the paper, Gregory thinks that the discipline of ubiquitous/pervasive computing has spread so widely throughout the computing world, that it had and should disappear because it no longer requires special attention. The author cites other researchers ideas to explain the disappearance of ubiquitous computing by saying that most profound research topics are those that disappear as they weave themselves into the fabric of everyday research until they are indistinguishable from it.

He mentions that although success of ubicomp as the third generation of computing cannot be denied, it is no longer a niche research topic to focus on, but best seen as the intellectual domain of all of computing. Additionally, he states that it may be hard for longstanding communities to disappear in the way he recommends, but it will assist those communities to adapt their practices to better support the intellectual goals.

The author uses different examples to clarify his idea; For instance he states that one of the lasting impacts of ubicomp research is the renewed interest in training computer scientists to have both software and hardware development skills. He also notes that all generations of ubicomp suggest a division between the computing device and the individual, so the human computer experiences will be more conjoined than before (I think reaching this point was one of the main ideas of the paper).

As the conclusion, he points that as we contemplate the fourth generation of computing, we should do so with a keen understanding of how our computing climate is today than before. Those differences allow us to revisit the dreams of the past and realise them in creatively productive new ways.

The paper I have selected is entitled ” Building a Digital Library of Captured Educational Experiences” . I have selected this paper because I found it relevant to the topic Ubicomp and had the same author as the paper that John recommended us to read and summarise.