A Tribute to Mark Weiser Father of Ubiquitous Computing and the Rise of the Mobile Mashup
Conferences & Talks

• Bo Begole

APPNATION 2010

13 September 2010 - 14 September 2010
San Francisco, California, USA

description

Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp) is an interaction paradigm for constructing information technologies embedded throughout our everyday work, home and school environments that are designed to fit into natural practices of humans. The vision was first described by Mark Weiser, then head of the Computer Science Laboratory at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC) in 1988, where Ubicomp technologies and businesses continue to be created. In many ways, Ubiquitous Computing is no longer a dream, but an all too ubiquitous reality where managing and controlling the multitude of information services, devices, and applications is becoming increasingly impossible. Fortunately, the problems Ubicomp has raised also provide the seeds of solutions. The proliferation of devices, sensors and services provides multiple points of interaction that can be recorded and mined for patterns to predict current and future user needs. Future services will become even more perceptive as they are fed by additional sources of information such as medical devices, on-body biometric monitors, vehicle telematics, user interaction with devices and services, social network services, and more. All of these information sources can be tapped to identify the relationships between people, objects and information, creating a personal semantic network to retrieve information that is more pertinent and actionable. Whereas Weiser and the early Ubicomp pioneers toiled to invent the hardware and software infrastructure needed for such applications, today we have widespread adoption of network services, portable computers and multi-media information. What we still don't have are tools to snap pieces together in a convenient manner.