Reading Response

An Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing:

The chapter showed me the history of ubiquitous computing and and what it would be in the future. I think it is a good example of how a concept can be turned in to an area with intensive research and then turns into commercial products that affecting our everyday lives. From the history, we can see how the industry and research community interact with each other until a successful product is introduced. This makes me think about the question being asked during Yibo’s defense: What is the commercial value of academic research. The commercial success of academic research results may not be immediate. It is an iterative process that may take decades until it can be accepted by the general public.

The Computer for the 21st Century:

The vision is based on the solid understanding of the current technology and research interest. The author knows how those hardware advances elicit new opportunities in terms of interaction. I think everyday objects will gradually have some sort of computing devices embedded into it regardless of this paper. What really makes the paper stands out is that the author can connect all the small pieces together and form a complete image of the computing experience of the future. This paper can help us to think about the big picture when designing our specific projects: How our design would work in this future computing eco-system? A few of the key concepts such as invisibility can be applied to technologies in general.

Designing Calm Technology:

I really like this paper. It demonstrated that the key to make easy to use technology is not just making it disappear, but to make the movement of attention focus effortless. The engine noise is a perfect example. There are so many things in the environment that demands our attention. Our brain is very good at putting even complicated operations into the background after a lot of repetitions. I think even the well designed ubiquitous computing devices will be noticed by the users when it is first introduced. The key is how to make it disappear to the background as quickly as possible.