Deploy or Die: A Choice for Application-Led Ubiquitous Computing Research

For the past fifteen years Ubiquitous Computing researchers have been exploring how computing can be pushed beyond the traditional desktop environment and seamlessly “woven into the fabric of our everyday lives” [13]. Yet, despite such grand vision, the vast majority of UbiComp research is published and forgotten long before it has any impact on everyday life, let alone woven into its fabric. I believe that the UbiComp community urgently needs to address this issue before the disparity between the now cliched rhetoric and the lack of real world impact drives the field into disrepute. In this position paper I argue that recent technological developments make it possible for Ubiquitous Computing applications to be deployed on a global scale and that, with a few exceptions, the research community is currently failing to embrace this opportunity for real-world impact (Section 2). I propose a direction for application-led UbiComp research that makes widespread deployment its success criteria (Section 3) and discuss the attitudes and practices within the community which are currently hampering the pursuit of deployable applications (Section 4). Finally, I highlight one pioneering research project that has already demonstrated that building deployable UbiComp applications can generate both global impact and research contributions (Section 5).