I think the paper showed us the first step: a general direction for hiding the complexity of operating computing devices. Ubiquitous computing has become an important research area since then, now we can think about how to implement it properly. If we look at many ubiquitous devices around us, including our own media space, we need to realize that sometimes they are weird.
When we embed devices into our physical environment, those devices will directly or indirectly alter the meanings of those objects. A door is not just a door anymore. It might be connected to your online social network or other things you do not expect. Will that change your behavior towards all physical doors? After accidently triggered the fire alarm by opening the wrong door, I now always stop and look again in front of unfamiliar doors to the outside.
The situation will get worse if the things you already familiar with will behavior unexpectedly. Saul’s office door can be controlled over the internet. That is not something we expect from an ordinary looking door. I know a lot of things will be weird at the beginning and after a while the culture will catch up and make it acceptable. Maybe one day internet controlled doors are common. Another example is the door of the University’s C-train station. It has a handle but it will open automatically. It is not what we expect from a door with a handle despite the door has a label: Automatic.
I do believe the ubiquitous computing can greatly simplify many tasks if implemented correctly. I do feel that a set of guidelines need to be produced similar to what has been done to software graphical user interface.
