When computers become invisible to users, the most important side of human-computer symbiosis (to humans) has a better chance to emerge. How to make them invisible? Make them ubiquitous … Tabs, pads, boards, and badges are the first bootstrapping steps in that direction, not the long-term goal.
Predictor: Weiser, Mark
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Wired magazine, Howard Rheingold interviews research director Mark Weiser at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Rheingold writes: ”Weiser wants computers to disappear into the background. When computers become invisible to users, the most important side of human-computer symbiosis (to humans) has a better chance to emerge. How to make them invisible? Make them ubiquitous. ‘Ubicomp’ Weiser calls it. To Weiser, the intellectual origins of ‘Ubicomp’ lie in the social rather than the technical side of PARC’s research: ‘The idea of ubiquitous computing first arose from contemplating the place of today’s computer in actual activities of everyday life,’ he writes in a recent paper. ‘In particular, anthropological studies of work life teach us that people primarily work in a world of shared situations and unexamined technological skills. However, the computer today is isolated from the overall situation and fails to get out of the way of the work.’ … The lab’s new direction, Weiser says, ‘recognizes even more that people are social creatures.’ He referred to his ideas as a form of ‘postmodern computing,’ in that he wants to ‘return to letting things in the world be what they are, instead of reducing them’ to data or virtualizing them into illusions. ‘Ubicomp honors the complexity of human relationships, the fact that we have bodies, are mobile,’ he said. Tabs, pads, boards, and badges are the first bootstrapping steps in that direction, not the long-term goal. Nevertheless, part of that environment has migrated into productland and is embodied in the ‘LiveBoard.'”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Language/Interface/Software
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: PARC is Back! After Fumbling the Future, Xerox PARC is Back With a Visionary New Director, Bright Researchers and Amazing New Technology
Quote Type: Paraphrase
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.02/parc_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney