Mega-Utilities Drive Invisible Technologies

A decade ago, while managing the Computer Science Laboratory at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Mark Weiser envisioned a computer “so imbedded, so fitting, so natural, that we use it without even thinking about it” (“Creating the Invisible Interface,” Proc. 7th Ann. ACM Symp. User Interface Software and Technology, ACM Press, 1994, p. 1). Today, Weiser’s vision is coming to pass everywhere: game phones, personal video recorders, digital cameras, sensor networks, automotive telematics, and more. Despite their apparent simplicity, invisible technologies represent the pinnacle of engineering accomplishments in digital design, networking, user interfaces, and machine learning as well as in the social science disciplines of psychology and anthropology. It takes a lot of science to move technology from the foreground to the background. This new bimonthly column will focus on leading-edge science that is inspiring the next generation of pervasive computing. Researchers at university and industry labs around the world will explain their work in intelligent user interfaces, interoperability, sensor networks, smart environments, and novel applications. In addition, the column will highlight the emerging area of proactive systems that come from the background to help people at the right time. MEGA-UTILITIES Computers are becoming pervasive in part because megahertz, megabits per second, and megabytes have become utilities much like water, gas, and electricity.