What is next for Ubiquitous Computing?

Writing this blog post was quite challenging because I personally have mixed have feelings in regards to ubiquitous computing.

In his paper What next Ubicomp? Celebrating an intellectual disappearing act, Gregory D. Abowd is trying to advance the idea that ubiquitous computing should no longer have its own independent field of research as it is rather becoming fused into the different research fields and disciplines, adopting a multi-disciplinary approach. The author makes it clear that his own extensive research experience in that field is what led him to draw that conclusion while deeply respecting the views of those who still think that ubiquitous should remain a separate research area. Although the author believes that ubiquitous computing should be embedded in other disciplines and may be application driven, yet this doesn’t mean that the contribution of ubiquitous computing should be left unnoticed or forgotten.

In order to explain his views, the author takes us back into the history of ubiquitous computing from its start with Mark Weiser who stated that “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it” in his paper entitled The Computer for the 21^st century (1991).In fact, in that paper, Weiser puts forward the idea that the real potential of technology relies in actually integrating it smoothly into people’s environments and lives in a way that doesn’t burden them and doesn’t require much thought from their behalf. The author agrees with Weiser’s views and affirms that it is essential not to maintain a research niche for ubiquitous computing and to rather put computing in the real world for broader use since ubiquitous computing is perceived as being an eclectic field. Although, the author supports Weiser’s opinion, he highlights few criticisms expressed by some researchers such as Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell who point out in their paper Yesterday’s tomorrows: notes on ubiquitous computing’s dominant vision(2007) that ubiquitous computing puts much focus on the future rather than focusing on the present and its needs. The authors doesn’t refute that opinion but rather states that the purpose of his paper isn’t to assess whether predictions of Weiser came true but to actually shed light on the idea that the focus of ubiquitous computing on the near future based on the present is in itself compelling and attractive.

After dwelling on the course of history of ubiquitous computing, the author dedicates the second half of his paper discussing what is next for ubiquitous computing, which mainly revolves around a multi-disciplinary perspective in order to solve real problems which does not always require breaking new ground.  According to the author, it is crucial to make ubicomp more available and enable designers to achieve significant outcomes without the need to have extensive and expensive resources. In order to make things more ubiquitous, researchers need to take advantage of existing structures and capabilities and channel them into new purposes. The author suggests that current technologies still do not merge entirely with the actual world. This idea resonates with Weiser and Brown’s views in the paper The Coming Age of  Calm Technology (1997) where he states that calm technology is when the periphery of humans is enriched through technology making their lives easier without being intrusive; an example of that would be a video conference which enhances communication by reflecting body and facial expressions in comparison to a phone conference. The result of such a calm technology is to put humans in familiar places and environments.

Abowd then concludes his paper by talking about programming environments, as a fusion between end-user programming and context aware computing and gives the example of Microsoft Kinect to illustrate that idea. He also ends off by pondering about the fourth generation of computing, without having an answer for what it might entail but claiming that it will definitely be a progression of the previous three generations.

Reading this paper has puzzled me because on one end, I would agree with the author that perhaps having technology weaved into the natural environment without burdening people might be a breakthrough and actually enhances some aspects of people’s lives. However, I wonder if people would appreciate the pervasive nature of ubiquitous computing. Having technology embedded in our daily lives to the extent that it practically becomes invisible makes me wonder about issues such as privacy. A question pops into my mind:  who owns the data which is  generated out of those technologies. Could this data be actually maliciously used? I mean I think of artificial satellites in space, we can’t see them nor feel their presence, but they are there collecting information about people, granting access to certain governments to observe and monitor individuals closely. Thinking of ubiquitous computing immediately makes me think of the consequences of it being so deeply embedded in our environment until we no longer notice it. Another point I would raise is how would ubiquitous computing be able to accommodate  for the different environments and contexts of people; some people are not even willing or ready to deal with basic technologies or find trouble in doing so, having technology infiltrating their lives might simply be too overwhelming. Finally, when I think of ubicomp, the below video comes to my mind, it entails some economic and political implications but seeing the extent which computing might reach makes one ponder.

Video: How China is changing your internet, The New York Times (2016)

References

Abowd, G. D. (2012, September). What next, ubicomp?: celebrating an intellectual disappearing act. In Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (pp. 31-40). ACM.

Bell, G. and Dourish, P. Yesterday’s tomorrows: notes on ubiquitous computing’s dominant vision. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 11, 2 (2007).

Weiser, M., & Brown, J. S. (1997). The coming age of calm technology. In Beyond calculation (pp. 75-85). Springer New York.

Weiser, M. (1991). The computer for the 21st century. Scientific american, 265(3), 94-104.

As for the paper I chose to highlight the pervasive/intrusive nature of Ubicomp it is:

Izadi, Shahram, et al. “KinectFusion: real-time 3D reconstruction and interaction using a moving depth camera.” Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology. ACM, 2011.

Link: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2047270

I chose that paper because it tackles Geometry-Aware Augmented Reality . A Kinectfusion is used to construct 3D models of  indoor physical scenes in real-time. The purpose of that is to increase the interaction of users and enable real-time, multi-touch interactions anywhere, for planar or non-planar reconstructed physical surface. This clearly reflects how ubicomp can be embedded in the actual world.