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Why Ubiquitous Computing?
Now that we've discussed a bit about what ubiquitous computing is, a legitimate question is: why should we care? Why should we be concerned about ubiquitous computing? My response to that is we should care because:
1. To a degree, it is already here--computers are already becoming ubiquitous,
and
2. Others are already planning our ubicomp future, so we may want to start paying attention.
Let me elaborate.
Computing Is Already Becoming Ubiquitous
Many devices and objects with computing built in are already here, and more will come. To support this claim and make it more tangible, I conducted some research in my own home. Basically what I did was just go through my house and inventory things which had some kind of microprocessor in them. This is what I found:
- Home office: 13 processors
- Kitchen: 7 processors
- Master Bedroom: 10 processors
- Family Room: 10 processors
- Master Bathroom: 2 processors
- Kid Bedroom 1: 7 processors
- Kid Bedroom 2: 7 processors
- Rec Room: 4 processors
- Dining room: 1 processor
- Bathroom 2: 2 processors
- Spare Bedroom: 3 processors
- Garage: 3 processors
Oh, and we shouldn't forget to count our two cars--each contains multiple processors for things like:
- ignition control
- ABS
- alarm
- stereo
- climate control
So that adds another 10 processors for a total of at least 80 processors around our house! Yes, we are fairly digital and have been accumulating stuff for many years, but we are far from abnormal and upcoming generations show signs of easily surpassing us in accumulation of digital gadgetry.
Others Are Planning Your Ubicomp Future
One of the more developed forms of ubicomp comes in the form of location-aware systems for proximity marketing. Proximity marketing is basically a system which detects your presence by sensing your Bluetooth phone (typically) when you pass nearby, and then attempts to send some form of marketing message or media to your phone. This is already happening in different places and different events, and these are no longer prototypes. There are several companies with commercial products and services for implementing proximity marketing. They would very much like to push even more marketing and advertisements at more people in more places.
In some ways it won't be much different from the barrage of advertisement pushed at us via our radios and TV sets which we have tolerated for decades. But wouldn't you want to have a say in how, where and what is pushed at you, especially if it can now find you as you walk the city streets, or roam the shopping malls? To be fair, most of the companies involved in this field are sensitive to the privacy concerns and provide a form of opt-in (or out). But the potential for abuse and media overload is very real.
In addition to these specific commercial applications, and unknown to the average person, (even most techie types) work in academic institutions has been going on for many years to develop more advanced and pervasive forms of ubicomp. Multiple conferences now exist which are dedicated to the fields of and related to ubicomp.
One might argue that this is a sign that ubicomp is a misguided concept. However, just because something spends years in R and D with no noticeable public impact or visibility does not mean you can dismiss it. Bluetooth was hyped, then arguably stumbled, but it eventually "stuck" as hyped and predicted and growth of bluetooth devices shows little signs of slowing. HDTV is taking forever--literally decades--to get developed, standardized, and gain widespread usage, but it too will soon be "ubiquitous".
At this point in time, there is a sufficient mix of available technology, decreasing hardware cost, and sufficient applications to drive ubicomp to its tipping point. Further, ubicomp is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It can emerge in different guises and ultimately only requires computing elements to be ubiquitous, which I don't think anyone could argue has not been happening for some time.
rk
