You amateur!

While we should celebrate the success of our extended community at delivering many vital components of Mark Weiser’s original vision of ubiquitous computing, we should also question the scope of this progress. Step back for a moment. What really matters? Everyday life spans a wide range of emotions and experiences – from moments of productivity and efficiency to play, reflection, and curiosity. But our research and designs in ubiquitous computing do not typically reflect this important life balance. The research we undertake and the applications we build often employ technologies in the pursuit of improving tasks and solving problems. While these are indeed noble and important areas of research that we should undertake, the successful computing tools, the ones we will really desire to cohabitate with, will be those that incorporate the full range of life experiences. We want our tools to sing of not just productivity and efficiency but of our love of curiosity, the joy of wonderment, and the freshness of the unknown.