Yesterday’s tomorrows: notes on ubiquitous computing’s dominant vision

TLDR

Ubiquitous computing differs from other computer science domains by being driven not by past technical problems but by a long‑standing vision of a future that may not have materialized as imagined. This article examines how that vision has shaped the research agenda and the resulting contemporary practices in ubiquitous computing. Drawing on cross‑cultural technology‑adoption studies, the authors propose a “ubicomp of the present” that foregrounds the messy realities of everyday life.

Abstract

Ubiquitous computing is unusual amongst technological research arenas. Most areas of computer science research, such as programming language implementation, distributed operating system design, or denotational semantics, are defined largely by technical problems, and driven by building upon and elaborating a body of past results. Ubiquitous computing, by contrast, encompasses a wide range of disparate technological areas brought together by a focus upon a common vision. It is driven, then, not so much by the problems of the past but by the possibilities of the future. Ubiquitous computing's vision, however, is over a decade old at this point, and we now inhabit the future imagined by its pioneers. The future, though, may not have worked out as the field collectively imagined. In this article, we explore the vision that has driven the ubiquitous computing research agenda and the contemporary practice that has emerged. Drawing on cross-cultural investigations of technology adoption, we argue for developing a "ubicomp of the present" which takes the messiness of everyday life as a central theme.