The Parctab Ubiquitous Computing Experiment

The ParcTab system integrates a palm-sized mobile computer into an office network. This project serves as a preliminary testbed for Ubiquitous Computing, a philosophy originating at Xerox PARC that aims to enrich our computing environment by emphasizing context sensitivity, casual interaction and the spatial arrangement of computers. This paper describes the Ubiquitous Computing philosophy, the ParcTab system, user-interface issues for small devices, and our experience developing and testing a variety of mobile applications.

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