Alexandre Gomes's Blog

Towards Ubiquitous Computing

"One day, they (consumers) will wake up and realize that they won’t need computers like today. Instead of sitting down in a chair and reaching the information, the information will be wide available in your pocket, wherever you go."

I agree with him and I'd say more. In my point of view, the information will be wide available not only in your pocket, but wherever you want, like clothes, walls, tables or even in the water.

Computer Specialization

I believe that, in the future, specialized devices will take over generic computers.

For instance, let's think about engines. Generic purpose engines don't exist anymore. My grandparents used to use a unique generic engine to get water from a watering hole and to triturate corn to feed little chickens. Now, engines come to the market as water pumps and mixers. That big device used for everything in the everyday life is now dead. When asked about that universal engine, my grandfather said it's gone, and he didn't need engines anymore. For him, engines is now used only in cars. For me, engines went invisible. In fact, engines became ubiquitous.

Some years ago, I used to listen to MP3 files in a 486 DX2 PC powered by Winamp. It was a very big and dirty white box. Today, all what I need to play MP3 files fits in my pocket is can be called as iPod. That means, again, generic engines (PC) was replaced by specialized ones (iPod) and, probably, not all of those iPod owners know that they have a complete computer inside their pocket. Maybe, they don't even like computers! For them, they don't need computers anymore to listen to MP3s. For me, now they need computers more than ever. IMO, computers started to become invisible and ubiquitous.

So, I believe the way we use computers (as users, not developers) today will no longer exists in the future. I think, in the future, we will have a computer for browsing, a computer for office stuff, a computer for playing, a computer for home controll and so on, and all of them will be cheaper, smaller and easier to use than today.

But, what about Java? That's a good question, and I'll talk about it later.

see'ya

Alê!

Comments

• Great post! Can´t wait 'till next talk.
  

  Posted by: marcelopacote on April 30, 2007 at 11:45 AM

• Hi Alexandre, I'm Lucas from Marge Project.

  Remenber that I told you about a book of this subject? Here is the webpage of it: http://www.studies-observations.com/everyware/bibliography.html

  This book is great and get together a lot of ideias of ubicomp.

  abraços!

  Posted by: lucastorri on April 30, 2007 at 01:12 PM

• Hi Alexandre!
  Cool post! It was a pleasure to meet you at FISL!

  --
  Bruno Ghisi - Marge Project

  Posted by: brunogh on April 30, 2007 at 01:44 PM

• one trend away from specialised devices is the cell phone, which is converging into a general purpose connected CE device including camera, media player, PDA, and in future, maybe PC? Altho personally i prefer simplest cheapest cell phone cos the new fancy ones are always jamming up on you, to quote a line from Get Shorty ;)

  Posted by: evanx on May 01, 2007 at 03:35 AM

• That's absolutely true, evanx, but I'm not sure if these powerful devices will please the big mass. Sometimes, I think they are interesting only for geeks. Well, maybe I'm totally wrong, but in Brazil, Series60 devices, for example, are often owned by developers, and not executives or business men. So, comparing the MP3 players hype with smart-phones, I'd bet on the former.

  Posted by: alegomes on May 02, 2007 at 01:42 AM

• Hi Alexandre i'm from Unicamp-Brazil and work with research in pervasive and ubiquitous computing using jme. If you have some interest, please e-mail me. I have put a video about my project (QuickFrame Project) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQTLygWqUzw

  Posted by: hiata_anderson on May 02, 2007 at 10:31 AM

• Hi Anderson. Nice to meet you. I saw your video. Pretty cool. Does QF has a web site? Should I compare it with the NB Mobility Pack? Thanks.

  Posted by: alegomes on May 02, 2007 at 05:55 PM

• Hi Alexandre, the project web site is under constrution. Sorry...
  Please, don't compare QF with NB Mobility Pack. The purpose of the QuickFrame project is to develop tools to minimize the device fragmentation problem. The visual designer generates XML files to be interpreted by QFInterpreter. Java code is not generated.

  Posted by: hiata_anderson on May 07, 2007 at 12:09 PM

• Nice...
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  http://www.chaco.gov.ar/meccyt/subsecyt/_act1/0000060b.htm
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  http://www.wapug.org.uk/_CoP_discussion/00001ca9.htm
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  http://www.wapug.org.uk/_CoP_discussion/00001ca8.htm
  Stanford - Stanford
  http://washington.uwc.edu/about/faculty/rybak_c/webpage/_disc10/00005663.htm
  http://orgs.salisbury.edu/fishing/Discussion/0000737f.htm
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