Physical Computing's Connected and Shape-Changing Future

T echnologies have a way of unexpectedly upending established social practices, often at a pace far outstripping the ability of a given society to absorb or process disruptions with awareness. From stirrups to gunpowder to magnets, history teaches that even seemingly mundane objects have the capacity to change everything.1 Physical computing has become an umbrella term whose practitioners draw theoretical and practical inspiration from research in a cluster of associated research domains, including tangible interactions, human-material interactions, shape-changing interfaces, organic user interfaces, interactive materiality, and material ecology. For many, a common goal is to bridge analog and physical worlds by infusing objects with compute and sensemaking capabilities, in some cases enabling changes in a material’s physical characteristics. The most intriguing implementations also strip away layers of abstraction and allow people to interact directly with objects with fewer intermediate interfaces, potentially reducing interaction friction, improving legibility, and fulfilling unmet human needs (see the sidebar for a list of potential applications). The transformation of material objects into intelligent, informationrich ones holds great promise for fruitful partnerships between humans and technology. However, new opportunities also bring new challenges. It behooves us to examine how these new objects impact humans so that we can thoughtfully engineer systems that are mindful of our social practices— sidestepping potentially troubling outcomes and creating technologies worth having.