2008 05 - bell dourish-yesterdaystomorrows - notes on ubiuitous computings dominant vision

Pers Ubiquit Comput (2006)
DOI 10.1007/s00779-006-0071-x

O R I GI N A L A R T IC L E

Genevieve Bell Æ Paul Dourish

Yesterday’s tomorrows: notes on ubiquitous computing’s
dominant vision

Received: 31 August 2005 / Accepted: 25 April 2006
Ó Springer-Verlag London Limited 2006

Abstract Ubiquitous computing is unusual amongst sible future. Rhetorically, Weiser situates the research
technological research arenas. Most areas of computer activities that he describes there as initial steps upon a
science research, such as programming language imple- path of technological development inspired by an ex-
mentation, distributed operating system design, or de- plicit vision of possible future relationships between
notational semantics, are defined largely by technical people, practice, and technology. Although much of his
problems, and driven by building upon and elaborating article describes a research program already under way
a body of past results. Ubiquitous computing, by con- and some of the early results that it had produced, the
trast, encompasses a wide range of disparate techno- dominant theme of the article is the twin challenge of
logical areas brought together by a focus upon a anticipating future trends and meeting future needs.
common vision. It is driven, then, not so much by the Weiser’s article was doubly influential. Not only did
problems of the past but by the possibilities of the fu- it articulate a research agenda that many have em-
ture. Ubiquitous computing’s vision, however, is over a braced, it also set a rhetorical tone that many have
decade old at this point, and we now inhabit the future adopted. So, the same concern with technological fu-
imagined by its pioneers. The future, though, may not tures continues to feature in the ways in which ubicomp
have worked out as the field collectively imagined. In research agendas are framed and in which technological
this article, we explore the vision that has driven the advances are motivated and measured. Ubicomp is
ubiquitous computing research agenda and the con- essentially defined by its visions of a technological fu-
temporary practice that has emerged. Drawing on cross- ture. Often, this is taken directly from Weiser’s own
cultural investigations of technology adoption, we argue work; almost one quarter of all the papers published in
for developing a ‘‘ubicomp of the present’’ which takes the Ubicomp conference between 2001 and 2005 cite
the messiness of everyday life as a central theme. Weiser’s foundational articles, a remarkable number of
publications to cite a single vision as fundamental for
their own work over a decade later. Even in cases where
Weiser’s own vision is not a driving factor, the idea that
ubiquitous computing research is exploring prototypes
1 Introduction of tomorrow’s everyday technology and everyday expe-
rience is a pervasive one.
Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) research is character- Such visions, however, are interesting not just for
ized primarily by a concern with potential future com- what they say about the future but also for what they say
putational worlds. This notion of research by future about the present. This seems to be particularly the case
envisionment has been a feature of ubicomp discourse when it comes to normative social relationships. Envi-
and reasoning since it earliest days; Weiser [1] founda- sionments of the future, such as those of the Worlds
tional article is even entitled ‘‘The Computer for the Fairs [2], Disney’s Tomorrowland [3], or most popular
twenty-first Century’’—an explicit look towards a pos- science fiction [4] have provided a useful analytic focus
for considering how the problems of today are per-
G. Bell (&)
ceived, framed, and understood. In this paper, we are
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA, USA concerned with the balance between past, present, and
E-mail: genevieve.bell@intel.com future embedded in conventional discourses about
ubiquitous computing. In particular, we are interested in
P. Dourish the central conundrum posed by the fact that Weiser’s
University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
E-mail: jpd@ics.uci.edu vision of the future is, by this point, not only an old one,

but also a very American one. The role of technology in solve themselves for responsibilities for the present; the
everyday life is, in the early twenty-first century, already problems of ubiquitous computing are framed as
quite different than it was when Weiser wrote in the late implementation issues that are, essentially, someone
1980s; among many other things, it is now explicitly else’s problem, to be cleaned up afterwards as part of the
acknowledged to have remarkable cultural variation. broad march of technology. Essentially, the future
PARC famously pursued a policy of ‘‘time–machine framing allows us to assume that certain problems will
research,’’ devoting its considerable financial and intel- simply disappear of their own accord. By focusing on
lectual resources to creating simulations of future case studies drawn from countries in which the vision of
computing environments; by this stage, though, ubiquitous computing has played out differently than
conventional computing platforms have vastly out- Weiser envisioned, we will draw attention to the com-
stripped even the ‘‘futuristic’’ environment that Weiser’s plex settings within which ubiquitous computing is al-
laboratory was capable of building. Yet, his original ways already embedded.
framing of the ubiquitous computing vision still occu- Third, the seamlessly interconnected world of future
pies an important place in much of the discourse of scenarios is at best a misleading vision and at worst a
ubiquitous computing research. As researchers working downright dangerous one. Homogeneity and an erasure
within and around ubiquitous computing discourses, of differentiation is a common feature of future envi-
our own research practices and interests also lie at this sionments; the practice is inevitably considerably mess-
intersection of technical and social considerations, and ier, and perhaps dealing with the messiness of everyday
our approach here will attempt to weave back and forth life should be a central element of ubicomp’s research
between them. One of us is a computer scientist whose agenda. We will illustrate the work involved in contin-
work lies at the intersection of computer science and ually producing alignments between technological
social science, the other a cultural anthropologist with a opportunities and social realities.
primary concern in information technology as a site of
cultural production and the consequences for technol-
ogy innovation and diffusion. The questions we want to 2 Ubiquitous computing’s ‘‘proximate future’’
ask, then, are as follows. First, how should we under-
stand the relationship between ubiquitous computing’s The dominant tense of ubiquitous computing writing is
envisioned future and our everyday present? Secondly, what we might call the ‘‘proximate future.’’ That is,
what influence does this have on contemporary ubiqui- motivations and frames are often written not merely in
tous computing research? And finally, what motivates the future tense, describing events and settings to come,
and explains the remarkable persistence and centrality of but describe a proximate future, one ‘‘just around the
Weiser’s vision? corner.’’ The proximate future is invoked in observa-
We will begin by exploring the ways in which ubiq- tions that ‘‘Internet penetration will shortly reach...’’ or
uitous computing researchers have framed their work ‘‘We are entering a period when...’’ or ‘‘New techno-
with respect to anticipated technological and social logical opportunities are emerging that...’’ or ‘‘Mobile
trends, and consider some of the implications of this phones are becoming the dominant form of...’’ A brief
approach. We will then present two cases of alternative perusal of proceedings of recent conferences confirms
visions of ubiquitous computing, one from Singapore the pervasive sense of the proximate future; of the 108
and one from Korea. These will then provide the basis papers comprising the Ubicomp conference proceedings
for a discussion of competing visions of ubiquitous between 2001 and 2004, fully 47% of the papers are
computing and the idea of a ‘‘ubicomp of the present.’’ oriented towards a proximate (and inevitable) techno-
Ultimately this paper is organized around three logical future (e.g., from only Ubicomp 2004, [5–9] and
framing points. more.) Indeed, Weiser’s foundational article originally
First, the centrality of ubiquitous computing’s published at the start of the last decade of the twentieth
‘‘proximate future’’ continually places its achievements century and entitled ‘‘The computer for the twenty-first
out of reach, while simultaneously blinding us to current century’’ is, similarly, built around a vision of the
practice. By focusing on the future just around the proximate future, the future just around the corner or
corner, ubiquitous computing renders contemporary over the horizon.
practice (at outside of research sites and ‘‘living labs’’), It may be that subsequent ubicomp writing has
by definition, irrelevant or at the very least already out- adopted not only Weiser’s technological vision, but as-
moded. Arguably, though, ubiquitous computing is al- pects of his formulation of how this vision will come to
ready here; it simply has not taken the form that we pass. Certainly, this collective envisionment of a future
originally envisaged and continue to conjure in our vi- saturated with technology has been a defining charac-
sions of tomorrow. We will draw on a number of case teristic of ubicomp research. What is perhaps most
studies to substantiate this point, drawing in particular interesting is that ubicomp research has generally shared
on models of the ubiquitous world that seem to deviate not only in the notion of a technology-saturated future,
from conventional images. but also in the designations of what sorts of technologies
Second, the framing of ubicomp as something yet to it is that will saturate our future. In other words, these
be achieved allows researchers and technologists to ab- collective avowals of future potentialities are ways in

which current activities are tied to the self-same agenda has it not yet come to pass? Two possibilities present
that Weiser set out in the late 1980s. In fact, citations to themselves.
Weiser’s article are often phrased not so much as a ‘‘look The first possibility is that the ubiquitous computing
backwards’’ but rather as a collective ‘‘look forwards’’; vision can never come to pass. The proximate future is a
that is, instead of saying ‘‘back in 1991, we thought future infinitely postponed; when we are continually
that...’’, they say ‘‘Just as Weiser suggested in 1991, we about to enter a new age, when we are continually
are soon to enter a world where...’’ anticipating what happens next, and when our attention
Latour and others [10] in the sociology of science is continually directed over the horizon, then by defini-
have talked about the pragmatics of citation practice, tion ubiquitous computing is never about the here and
noting that citing the ways in which one’s own work now. Indeed, within this particular model of a techno-
depends on prior results and writings not only logical future, it is hard to imagine how we could ever, as
acknowledges intellectual debts, but also builds defen- a community, say, ‘‘There. It is done.’’
sible positions by aligning research with existing para- The second possibility is that ubiquitous computing
digms and traditions, and by enrolling others as tacit already has come to pass. Clearly, of course, we do not
supporters of one’s approach. However, beyond the live in ‘‘Sal’s world,’’ as described in the scenario out-
ways in which citation builds intellectual networks, it is lined in Weiser’s paper. But perhaps ubiquitous com-
worth stopping for a moment to think about the time puting is already here, but took a form other than that
dilations involved here. Weiser formulated his vision of which had been envisioned. Arguably, and as we will
ubiquitous computing in the late 1980s [11]; although explore at more length below, our contemporary world,
the Scientific American article was published in 1991, the in which mobile computation and mobile telephony are
ubicomp project was already, by that point, well central aspects not just of Western commercial endeav-
underway, and indeed the 1991 article is not only a ors but also facets of everyday life in the developing
compelling vision of the future, but a progress report world, is already one of ubiquitous computing, albeit in
on the project of realizing it (complete with photographs unexpected form.
of devices that had already been designed and built, In fact, these two possibilities are not distinct options,
and reports on their use.) However, the invocation of but rather are two aspects of the same observation—that
Weiser’s vision as one that we share and continue to the vision of the future originally envisioned by Weiser,
prosecute neglects the significant difference between then and still motivating much research in ubiquitous com-
and now, and changing techno-social contexts. puting, is one that is firmly entrenched in its own par-
So, for example, in 1989, at the same time as the ticular moments, locations and cultural contexts, a
ubiquitous computing research agenda was being for- vision as much of the past as of the future. From this
mulated, Intel introduced the 486DX processor, running perspective, the future that ubicomp has been attempt-
at 25 MHz. Apple introduced the Mac IIci, based on a ing to build is not our own future, but 1989s
25 MHz MC68030 processor. They had yet to release a future—yesterday’s tomorrows. Weiser envisioned ‘‘the
Powerbook laptop, but 1989 also saw the debut of the computer for the twenty-first century.’’ Having now
16lb, 16 MHz Macintosh portable. In the same year, entered the twenty-first century that means that what we
Sun introduced the Sparcstation-1, running at 20 MHz should perhaps attend to is ‘‘the computer of now.’’
and with a maximum memory capacity of 64 M. From a In order to help us see the present day ‘‘anew,’’ we
contemporary perspective, these would be poor ‘‘specs’’ present two examples of contemporary computational
for a portable MP3 player never mind a scientific practice oft neglected in Western research confer-
workstation. The figures for the telecommunications ences—ubiquitous computing in Singapore and in
market are equally salutary. The first US cellular tele- Korea.
phony service had begun in 1983; by 1988, there were
approximately 1.6 million US subscribers. In Europe,
the GSM standard for mobile telephony was not dem- 3 Ubiquitous computing environments: Singapore
onstrated until 1991 (with the first network operator
becoming active in 1992). Located at the tip of the Malay peninsular, Singapore is
In other words, today’s technological landscape is a small, prosperous former British colony with a robust
quite radically different than that of the late 1980s when economy, a technologically literate population, and a
Weiser was outlining the ubiquitous computing vision. reputation for strong government regulation of daily life
The idea that, in the early twenty-first century, we are [12–16]. Singapore is a diverse ethnic and culture mix:
postulating much the same proximate future vision of more than 76% of Singapore’s 4.3 million residents
ubicomp that motivated Weiser is a somewhat surprising identify as Chinese, another 14% as Malay, slightly over
one. Given that the last 20 years have seen such radical 8% as Indian, and the rest a mix of expatriates. Most
transformations of technological infrastructure world- Singaporeans are comfortably middle class, and the
wide, and that Moore’s Law suggests a 8,000-fold in- nation enjoys higher than average per capita household
crease in computational performance, two questions incomes (around S$37,555 per year), and remarkable
immediately present themselves. First, why is our vision rates of home ownership (94%). Singapore is also one of
of the future still the same as Weiser’s, and second, why the most wired (and indeed, ‘‘unwired,’’ that is, digitally

connected via wireless networks) countries in the world pore’s Chinese community, encouraging them to vener-
[17]. Yet Singaporeans do not appear to think of ate at home, rather than in Singapore’s many cemeteries,
themselves as living on a cutting technology edge—cell hoping by doing to cut the risk of transmission. In
phones, hot spots and multi-media mobile messages are thinking about Singapore as a ubiquitous computing
at this point naturalized parts of the local cultural environment, then, it is also important to think about
landscape. Yet ironically, it is an example of ubiquitous what happens on and around the infrastructures built
computing out of the lab, out the experimental frame, in out in accordance with IT2000, and those that just
the wild, working. happened (like the adoption of mobile phones). What
In 1992, 6 months after Mark Weiser’s article ap- kinds of experiences, services and applications transpire?
peared in the pages of Scientific American, the Singap- What are people doing, or not doing, in an environment
orean National Computer Board launched IT2000 so full of sensing and smart technologies?
Masterplan, the third in a series of ambitious technology Almost everyone in Singapore owns a cell phone—it
roadmaps for their island nation-state [18]. To achieve is unlikely that even those without phones are beyond
the goals of this plan, the board deemed it necessary to reach of a phone. Phones are utterly pervasive and can
develop a nation-wide information infrastructure. This be found interwoven into most of the aspects of daily life
proposed infrastructure would connect up nearly every [21]. In any given month Singaporeans exchange more
home, school, and workplace in Singapore, creating an than 690 million text messages—around 200 messages
‘intelligent island’ (ibid). The island nation-state of per phone per month. Indeed, text messaging has be-
Singapore is small, compromising of slightly less than come an art form in Singapore; a young Singaporean
434 square miles, a land-mass only three and half times woman recently took the crown for the fastest text
that of Washington DC, so making such a vision real messenger in the world, entering 26 words in 43.24 s.
seemed more reasonable. As part of the broader IT2000 For regular Singaporeans, speed is facilitated by all sorts
plan, Singapore ONE (One Network for Everyone) was of local short-hands that have crept into text messaging,
launched in 1996, bringing together a range of public including a use of Sing-lish—the local Singaporean pa-
sector agencies to roll out a high-speed data network tios. The two major mobile service providers offer a wide
test-bed across the island which would in turn support a range of mobile services from feng shui advice to the
host of applications and services designed to enhance weather; they also offer various translation applications
not only Singapore’s economic position globally but also which make good sense in a country with four official
to ‘‘improve the quality of life of its citizens’’ [19]. This languages [22]. The mobile nature of cell phones also
plan was not without its technical challenges and delays creates the new opportunities for location-based ser-
[20], but is safe to say now, a decade later, the ‘intelligent vices—everyone in Singapore jokes about the impossi-
island’ vision has been realized. Rather than a proximate bility of hailing a taxi without a cell phone. Most public
future, there were a series of bench-marked achieve- locations in Singapore now have some kind of code that
ments and milestones and the setting of a new 10 year you send in a SMS message to a taxi company who
agenda. dispatches a taxi to your location—simple, but effective.
Statistics tell one story. As of December 2004, 92.2% Singaporeans rely on their phones for everything from
of the population owns a cell phone. A total of 73.3% of basic communication to more sophisticated forms of
Singapore’s 964,000 households have a computer at commerce, social interaction and political engagement.
home, and more than 65% of households have access to There are other ways in which Singapore’s trans-
the internet—about 42% use dial-up and 41% broad- portation infrastructure blends different sorts of tech-
band (though these numbers are changing monthly, with nological interventions—in both the public and private
the former declining, while the latter grows). Outside of domains. Again, Singapore’s size here is an advantage.
the home, the two major mobile phone carriers offer 560 The vast majority of Singapore’s residents use public
wireless hotspots between them, with Starhub boasting transport in their daily lives. In fact, Singapore’s mass
that is hotspots cover nearly 115 square miles of the rapid transit system serves more than 1 million passen-
island. In addition to these ICTs, Singapore also has gers daily in the city’s high-density travel corridors, and
other sorts of ubiquitous technologies, including the many more use the bus lines to reach their final desti-
world’s first electronic road payment system, a blanket nations. The train system utilizes smart card ticketing
i-CCTV coverage network, a computer-driven mass and advanced CCTV to provide seamless and safe
transit system, and an enviable smart-postal network. transportation. Although only about 11% of the popu-
It is not so difficult, then, to make the case that lation owns a car, there is also a significant infrastruc-
Singapore represents a kind of ubiquitous computing ture of taxis and traffic control in Singapore has always
environment. Indeed during the SARS outbreak in 2003, been an issue. In 1998, Singapore’s Land Transport
the government strategically employed the internet and Authority implemented the world’s first electronic road
the cell phone base as a way to distribute critical infor- pricing (ERP) system [23, 24]. Utilizing a dedicated
mation, and provide cyber alternatives to ongoing social short-wave radio communication system, unique in-
practices, including the festivals around Ching Ming vehicle identification units, smart cards, distributed data
which fell during the outbreak. Here the government collection points and a centralized data centre, the ERP
helped create online shrines for the ancestors of Singa- provides Singapore’s drivers with variable pricing

schemes for entry into the central business district dur- debate social issues constructively and to help educate
ing the week—saturdays have no tolls. The data is dis- members of a society to be more knowledgeable and
played on large LED boards at major intersections sophisticated’’ [26, Sect. 9.4]. In his letter to the chair-
ringing the restricted zone—and drivers will make deci- man of the Censorship Review Committee, the then
sions based on the pricing at these transition points and Minister of Information, Communication and the Arts
taxi-drivers will consult with price-sensitive passengers wrote:
regarding appropriate routes. Tolls are debited directly
Your committee has succeeded in keeping the report
from drivers through a smart card system. Interestingly
relevant against the backdrop of our social evolution
while the system did not result in a boost to the public
and changing global landscape. While understanding
transportation system, within the first year there was a
the need to fan the creative flames of the new gener-
noticeable drop in the number of times any single vehicle
ation and to accommodate the diversity of views, you
entered the restricted zone on a given day [24]. Digitally
were sensitive not to weaken the ‘glue’ that bonds our
enhanced vehicles, smart toll booths and various forms
society—our core values, our identity, our shared
of technological interventions in the mass transit system,
memories, our religious and racial harmony. Your
all point to an almost seamless manifestation of ubiq-
committee also sees censorship as a shared responsi-
uitous computing in the otherwise very prosaic domain
bility, thus your approach of encouraging participa-
of public transportation.
tion comprising regulators, industry players,
The development of an intelligent island has not been
community and artists in the process....Our common
without its challenges—for Singaporeans, this ubiqui-
challenge is to achieve a balance where adults can
tous computing environment with its mobile handsets,
have wider access, whilst our young are provided with
pervasive internet and smart sensors raised questions
a conducive environment to develop morally and so-
about content, surveillance and control. Regulation of
cially, without compromising the development of
ubiquitous computing spaces is not often a subject that
creativity and social capital. These objectives might be
is well documented in the relevant literature, save
difficult but certainly not incompatible [26].
through the vectors of privacy and security. However,
the Singapore example seems to offer some interesting
Here technology is understood as always and already
re-workings of the consequences of a wide-scale
operating within a cultural context and a complicated
deployment and subsequent accessibility. In late 1996,
one at that—the religious, cultural and racial heteroge-
the Singaporean Ministry of Information and the Arts
neity of Singaporean society is a constant feature of
announced plans to filter all internet use through gov-
negotiations around appropriate regulation of technol-
ernment proxies to regulate access to political, religious,
ogy environments. This construction of censorship
and pornographic content online. Not only were ISPs,
happened in the larger context of Singapore’s social/
cyber cafes and websites required to register with the
cultural regulation of the internet, in particular the
Broadcast Authority, but adopting an approach similar
National Internet Advisory Committee (NIAC) contin-
to that used in China, the government blocked access to
ued its charter to promote ‘‘the safe and positive use of
at least one hundred sites it deemed most problem-
the internet’’ [28] (1). In 2002, they reported ongoing
atic—including playboy.com. Usenet groups were also
concerns about internet accessibility via mobile
subject to scrutiny, intervention and regulation [25]. The
devices—particularly as it negated the value of parental
head of the Singapore Broadcasting authority was
supervision. While it is possible for parents to put the
quoted at the time as saying that the regulation was in
personal computer in the communal room at home to
the service of national safely: ‘‘We don’t want objec-
supervise their children’s online activities; that safety
tionable material to be easily available...We just want to
measure is greatly diminished with mobile Internet [28]
keep this part of the Internet within our immediate
(4). This continuing concern with children’s safety in
neighborhood clean.’’ What is particularly interesting
particular, promoted the NIAC to launch a new ‘cyber
about these censorship moves is that many Singaporeans
wellness’ initiative—‘‘in the cyber wellness vision, users
regarded them as positive and appropriate government
should not only embrace the Internet in their lives, they
actions [25, 26], while outsiders viewed this further proof
should also adopt an attitude of using the Internet for
of a controlling state.
inspiring others and contributing to the community’’
Singapore’s censorship regime has been well docu-
[28] (7). Furthermore the task force goes on to suggest
mented [27] and is often the subject of derision, scorn
that this vision of cyber wellness also incorporates a
and skepticism. However, its collaborative nature,
sense of personal responsibility—to not spam, to not
clearly articulated principles and relatively transparency
spread misleading information, to verify the accuracy of
make it worthy of closer scrutiny—as it has interesting
information gleaned online before acting upon it [28].
implications in the ubicomp space. In 2003, Singapore
This language, and its intent, is remarkable. Here the
authorities revisited these questions of regulation and
ubiquity of the internet is seen to support collective and
control of the internet in their decadal review of cen-
community practices, individuals are not just satisfying
sorship in Singapore [26]. The committee defined cen-
their own desires and needs but operating within a larger
sorship not as a confrontation between regulators and
cultural framework. Imaging ubiquitous computing as a
the regulated, but rather ‘‘it is about collaboration to

collective practice, rather than a set of discrete individ- cades have flourished even as Korea’s home-PC uptake
ual actions, is an important reframing of that techno- has grown. This seemingly topsy–turvy reality makes
logical vision. sense when you know that Korean homes are considered
to be extremely private domains, closed often even to
one’s closest friends, and that socializing, especially
4 Ubiquitous computing environments: Korea when it comes to gaming, has nearly always had a space
in the public domain, and is in fact actively sought out
So if Singapore, then, is an example of collective uses, as that way. While 90% of Korea’s online population goes
well as computational device and sensor ubiquity, Korea on line at home, 25% also report regularly go online in
must surely be an example of infrastructural ubiquity cyber cafes. Even those people who have computers at
and of public/private sector co-operations to achieve it. home are also frequently using computational devices
With its population of 45 million, Korea routinely ranks away from those homes. Further eschewing some of our
as one of the most connected countries in the world: expectations of technology usage patterns, of the sixteen
77% of Korea’s 16.9 million households have computers million or so Koreans who make use of some form of
in them; the average user spends about 15 h/week using mobile internet access only 30% do so on the move; a
that computer, 11 of those hours online. Just over 70% full 40% report using their mobile devices to access the
of the population reports using the internet regularly; a internet while at home [29]. Interestingly, women are
staggering 96% of Koreans, ages 6–20, report using the slightly outpacing men in their consumption of mobile
internet regularly—for everything from email to gaming, internet experiences—38 to 34%. Less surprising,
data management and education [29]. Furthermore, Koreans using mobile internet access skew young—83%
according to the National Internet Development Agency of those under 20 reports using it at some time, this
of Korea, 83% of Koreans have their own email ad- includes everything from surfing the web to engaging in
dresses—this includes 85% of those under 20, 91% of a range of eCommerce and mCommerce where the
those in their 20 s, and a remarkable 67% of those of 60, phone is the dominant mode of payment for online
and just under a third of all Koreans who use the in- content in any form.
ternet report having more than 1 email address. It is safe In 2004, against this backdrop of ubiquitous con-
to say that the internet is a ubiquitous technology in nectivity, devices and content, and also a booming
Korea. middle class [30, 31], Daeje Chin, the Minister of
Korea is also frequently touted as the leading Information and Communication, and a former senior
broadband market in the world, and it is. The remark- executive at Samsung, launched IT389—‘‘The Road to
able level of connectivity is, in no small part, facilitated $20,000 GDP/capita’’—a remarkable technology plan
by the nature of Korea’s urban landscape. More than that proposed to transform Korea into a ubiquitous
81% of Koreans live in urban areas—indeed nearly 25% society by 2010 [32]. ‘‘U-Korea,’’ as it was quickly
of the country’s population lives in Seoul alone—and dubbed in the press, was a bold plan that relied on the
most of those live in high-rise, multi-family, high-density close ties that already exist between Korea’s govern-
dwellings. These tall, heavily populated buildings create ment and many large private sector companies [33–35].
a last-mile boon, not available in US urban sprawl—you The plan which takes its name from eight services
only need extend the wire to a building, and plug the (Wireless Broadband, Digital Multi-media Broadcast-
whole building in, rather than wiring house by house. As ing, Home Network, Telematics, RFID, W-CDMA,
a result of readily available, and relatively cheap, high Terrestrial Digital TC, VOIP), three infrastructures
speed data connections (with fat pipes up and down); (Broadcast Convergence Network, Ubiquitous Sensor
Koreans enjoy a wide range of internet usages at home, Network, Next Generation Internet Protocol) and nine
including watching previously shown TV programs, equipment fields (Next-Generation Mobile Communi-
streamed to their home computers. Just as 77% of cations, Digital TV, Home Network, IT System-on-
households in Korea have usable computers at home, Chip, Wearable PC, Embedded SW, Digital Contents,
72% of Korean households are connected to the internet Telematics, Intelligent Service Robot) is designed to
[29]. But perhaps more remarkable is the fact that only boast Korea’s production, employment and exports,
86% of Korean homes can connect to the internet, ultimately raising the entire country’s GDP, as well as
meaning that 14% of Korean households that could those of all households. In the press, Chin was quoted
connect to the internet chose not to, and a further 14% as saying that U-Korea meant ‘‘a society where all
of households cannot connect at all. Given the strength people can enjoy the benefits of state-of-the-art IT at
of recent government actions, it is interesting to see the anywhere and anytime.’’ It appears to be well under-
presence of a lingering form of digital divide, or at least stood that the ubiquity to which Chin refers is a so-
inaccessibility. cially experienced one, that it happens to Korean
In addition to this still high degree of broadband society, not just for Korean individuals. Indeed, even
penetration, Korea also happens to be one of the fastest the metric of success of IT839 is at a household le-
growing markets for ‘PC-Bangs’ or cyber vel—per capita household income will rise, as will
arcades—gaming parlors with between 20 and 200 ma- quality of life for all Koreans. Again, the vision of a
chines, designed to support online gaming. These ar- technology future, here explicitly called out as ubiqui-

tous computing is manifested at a collective cultural or misguided as 1950s science fiction’s speculations about
societal level. twenty-first century clothing and gender relations.

5 Visions of ubiquitous computing 6 Messiness: an alternate ubicomp?

Studies of daily life in non-Western environments, even What these alternative and contemporary views of
those that are richly populated with wireless and ubiquitous infrastructure have in common is their
embedded technologies, are remarkably rare in ubiqui- messiness. In our collective vision of ubicomp’s proxi-
tous computing research publications, even when, as in mate future, the messiness of our local laboratory
these cases, they would seem to be paradigmatic exam- infrastructures (the nests of cabling hidden in the
ples of ubiquitous computing. dropped ceiling or behind the closet door, the jumble of
There are a range of differences between the settings perl, Java, and python code that precariously conspire to
we have been describing and those that more conven- produce results in demos) is replaced by a clean,
tionally appear in Ubiquitous Computing research, and gleaming infrastructure seamlessly providing well
these may account for the absence of these sorts of ac- understood services. In practice, though, we see that
counts as parts of the ubicomp vision. Perhaps it is that infrastructures are continually visible and must be con-
in Singapore computational technology is both embed- sciously attended to in the course of everyday encounters
ded in daily life (e.g. CCTV, sensors) and carried around with ubiquitous computing, from the vagaries of net-
(e.g. cell phones), disappearing into the fabric of every- work access to the structure of service billing. The crit-
day life. Perhaps it is that Korea’s infrastructural ical property of this messy infrastructural regime in the
development relied not on the free-market but on a everyday world is that it is most emphatically not a
strong relationship between the public and private sec- problem of living on the ‘‘bleeding edge,’’ as it often is
tors. Perhaps it is because all these cultural, social and for research labs. Infrastructures remain messy after
political contexts within which technologies have tran- decades or centuries, as the user of any transit system
spired, and the contexts in which they been deployed, from urban subways to international airlines can attest.
consumed and resisted are unfamiliar and thus unread- The lesson of the real world of ubiquitous computing,
able. Perhaps it is because Sal’s scenario and other then, is that we will always be assembling heterogeneous
standard visions of digital futures do not accommodate technologies to achieve individual and collective effects.
monitoring and restricting car traffic, or centralized Star [36, 37] has been a particularly prominent
governmental control and regulation of infrastructure or advocate of the use of infrastructure as an analytic lens
content, or dense urban environments, or extended through which to consider the relationship between
collective public living, or sensing urination in elevators, human action and technology. The crux of her approach
or electronic consultations about feng shui or ambient is to look at infrastructure as a relational concept; an
displays of prayer times on a mosque wall. But if they infrastructure is an infrastructure only from the per-
did, where else might we see ubiquitous computing al- spective of specific peoples and technologies. To us as
ready happening? Cairo with its freshly deployed WiFi casual users, the sewer system is an urban infrastructure,
network set to connect all the local mosques and create a ubiquitously available and uniform in its operation; to a
single city-wide call to prayer? Indonesia’s e-mosque sewer engineer, however, exposed to the daily practi-
project? calities and pragmatics of waste water management and
In other words, by looking outside of the research treatment, the sewer is not an infrastructure but a site of
laboratory, we are looking at ubiquitous computing as it work, and not uniform but highly localized and variable.
is currently developing rather than it might be imagined Star’s perspective is particularly instructive here,
to look in the future. In these settings, we certainly see since, in adopting infrastructure as a site of enthno-
concerns with mobile devices, with infrastructures for graphic inquiry, she also dispels the myth of infra-
partial connectivity, and with optimizing applications structure as quiescent and stable. Infrastructures must
for devices with restricted input and restricted power. be actively maintained, and relationships to them must
But at the same time, we also see that the ubiquitous be continually negotiated. Mainwaring et al. [38] provide
computing agenda is one that is fundamentally tied to a valuable examination of these issues for ubicomp in
other important but neglected issues such as multi-gen- exploring different attitudes towards infrastructure, and
erational living, high density housing, public transit, indeed looking at the relationship with infrastructure as,
religious observance, the practicalities of calling a cab, itself, a cultural production. So, for example, amongst
the politics of domesticity and the spatialities of infor- their subjects, the rejection of infrastructure (be that
mation access—the messiness of every day practice. commercial or technological) is itself a marker of certain
A focus on current practice and on the diversity of forms of social life, and even a way in which inter-per-
settings in which ubiquitous computing is currently sonal relationships are managed (e.g. through a concern
being put to work can, perhaps, help us avoid visions of with ‘‘authenticity’’ in everyday life and interaction.)
ubicomp application that are, in their own way, as McCullough [39] similarly explores the structure of

everyday space as a confluence of infrastructural What seems like a straightforward process—the cate-
arrangements that overlap to produce effects that reach gorization of causes of death—is rife with complications,
beyond each. especially because of the uses to which the information
In other words, infrastructures are messy. The mess- will be put later. For example, consider the difficulties
iness that we experience in laboratory ubiquitous com- faced by AIDS researchers. AIDS deaths are, typically,
puting infrastructures is not a property of prototype the direct result of other infections that a patient suffers
technologies, of the bleeding edge, or of pragmatic because of immune deficiency. However, before a cate-
compromise; messiness is a property of infrastructure gory allowed physicians to record death by AIDS, the
itself. Infrastructures are inherently messy; uneven in condition was essentially ‘‘invisible’’ in the medical sta-
their operation and their availability. The notion of a tistics, making it extremely difficult to mobilize support
seamless and uniform infrastructure is, at best, a chi- for research funding. Similarly, the different purposes to
mera, and at worst, to draw on aboriginal Australian which the statistics, once gathered might be put—public
myth, a mulywonk—a fearsome creature that might be health actions, regulation of industries, allocation of
invoked to steer people away from certain paths, places, resources, and more—result in a host of different pres-
or actions. sures that shape the information infrastructure. The
This messiness is important. Our suggestion that uniform structure of the ICD hides the messiness of
ubiquitous computing is already here, in the form of practice beneath—the way it coordinates multiple dif-
densely available computational and communication ferent interests (e.g. the needs of medical practitioners,
resources, is sometimes met with an objection that these legislators and regulatory agencies, researchers and
technologies remain less than ubiquitous in the sense funding agencies, pharmaceutical companies, etc), the
that Weiser suggested. Mobile telephony, after all, offers different ways it is put to work in different parts of the
widespread coverage, but is neither truly ubiquitous nor world (reflecting not only different power relationships
truly seamless; incompatible standards, spotty regional but also different cultural interpretations of disease), the
coverage, etc., seem like obstacles that we must still variability in its coverage of diseases associated with
overcome before the ubiquitous computing vision can be different regions (such as the under-representation of
realized. But postulating a seamless infrastructure is a tropical diseases), etc.
strategy whereby the messy present can be ignored, al- Third, a significant infrastructure issue for ubiquitous
though infrastructure is always unevenly distributed, computing endeavors is the problem of power—not
always messy. An indefinitely postponed ubicomp future MIPS-per-Watt, or even Foucauldian curbs on agency,
is one that need never take account of this complexity. but the electrical supply that keeps our electronic world
Consider some examples. (quite literally) humming. World travelers are already
Verrips and Meyer [40] describe the complex net- familiar with the problems of varying voltage, frequency
works of support and practice necessary to maintain and socket shapes, but these forms of variability mask a
cars in Ghana. Most vehicles on the road here were not more complex reality where, for example, in many parts
designed for sub-Saharan Africa, but rather are second- of the developing world, the dominant infrastructure for
or third-hand vehicles imported from Europe and pres- power is based on car and truck batteries. It is not
sed into new life. Their discussions of the travails of simply that these are improvised replacements for the
keeping a car on the road are framed by the radical ‘‘natural’’ arrangement of power distribution available
departure from their European models of cars as com- in the West and the developed world, but rather that
modity items and elements in a network of technological they constitute an alternative, indigenously appropriate
standardization. Initially surprised (indeed, appalled) by and thoroughly invisible infrastructure for power gen-
the practices of customization, jury-rigging, and make- eration, albeit one quite radically different from our
shift maintenance that are pervasive in Ghana, they own. Ironically, current developments in what is known
gradually uncover an alternative infrastructure uniquely as ‘‘distributed generation’’ in the developed world
adapted to local needs and to the problems of main- (incorporating solar cells, fuel cells, and micro-turbine
taining an engineering artifact outside of its natural generators into a complex infrastructure in which pro-
environment. The same vehicle, moved from Europe to duction and consumption are more evenly distributed
Africa, is embedded in a radically different infrastruc- through the grid) are moving Western power infra-
ture and a radically different web of social values asso- structures in some ways in directions closer to those we
ciated with mobility, reuse, exchange, commodification, might see in the developing world.
craftsmanship, etc. Infrastructures, then, be they networks of car
In their work on information infrastructures, Bowker mechanics, medical categories, or power sources, are
and Star [41] discuss the International Classification of never seamless in the ways in which they are put to
Diseases, a common infrastructure for the collection and work. They are sites of negotiation and contest, com-
comparison of mortality statistics worldwide. Like other promise and coordination, approximation and partial
boundary objects [42], though, the ICD is less a stable agreement. They are unevenly distributed and unevenly
platform upon which everyone can stand, and more a available. They are continually in flux, and brought into
means by which different interests, groups, concerns, local stability only through active engagement and
and activities can be brought into temporary alignment. coordination. Infrastructure itself is a relational prop-

erty; it describes a relationship between technology, ever, again, this did not necessarily take the form that
people, and practice. In this environment, then, thinking had been anticipated. Computational technologies are
of infrastructure as stable, as uniform, as seamless, and embedded in social structures and cultural scripts of
as universally available is clearly problematic. It is not many sorts; ubicomp technologies prove also to be sites
merely a dream of a world not yet realized; it is a dream of social engagement, generational conflict, domestic
of a world that could never be realized. regulation, religious practice, state surveillance, civic
protest, romantic encounters, office politics, artistic
expression, and more.
7 Towards a ubicomp of the present What this suggests, then, is that we need a deeper
understanding of how social and cultural practice is
What this suggests, then, is an alternative domain of carried out in and around emerging information tech-
ubicomp research—a ubicomp not of the future but of nologies. If ubiquitous computing is already here, then
the present. William Gibson famously quipped that we need to pay considerably more attention to just what
‘‘The future is already here; it’s just not very evenly it is being used to do and its effects. Interestingly, while
distributed’’ [43]. We take each component of this aph- considerations of the social and cultural elements in u-
orism as a component of an alternative research agenda bicomp’s agenda has traditionally been thought of in
for ubicomp. terms of ‘social impacts,’ our focus here is more on
technology as a site of social and cultural production;
that is, as an aspect of how social and cultural work are
7.1 The future is already here done, rather than as something which will inevitably
transform social practice. Indeed, it may be quite the
The future is already here. The technological trends that other way around.
Weiser insightfully extrapolated have, just as he antici-
pated, resulted in radical transformations and reconfig-
urations of the role of computation in everyday life. 7.2 It’s just not very evenly distributed
Weiser anticipated a world in which computation would
be embedded into our everyday worlds—not just phys- The idea that the future is not very evenly distributed
ically embedded but also socially and procedurally has traditionally been taken to note differential access to
embedded, becoming part and parcel of how we act in technologies, and in particular the concentration within
the world. It has not, perhaps, taken the form that he the research laboratories of universities and corpora-
anticipated, although PDAs, cell phones, large-scale tions of advanced technological infrastructures. Here,
displays and digital cameras do bear family resem- we read it in three ways: first, as noting the ways in
blances to the devices that Weiser imagined would come which power relations are embedded in access to infra-
to populate our world. However, the fact that the details structure; second, as pointing towards the quite different
are different should not blind us to the remarkable patterns of technology adoption and use in different
accuracy of Weiser’s vision. Computation is embedded cultural settings; and third, as signally a primary concern
into the technology and practice of everyday life; we with how inherently messy and uneven infrastructures
continually use computational devices without thinking are encountered and navigated.
of them as computational in any way. The desktop First, drawing on analyses of ‘‘time–space compres-
computer has not been displaced, but augmented. sion’’ such as that of Harvey [44], Doreen Massey [45]
Interestingly, though, while the technological form of coined the term ‘‘power-geometries’’ to refer to the ways
ubiquitous computing differs only in its details from the that spatial arrangements (e.g. the locations of homes
model that Weiser had anticipated, it is perhaps the use and their proximity both to amenities and to sources of
of ubiquitous computing which would have surprised noise and pollution) and patterns of access and mobility
him. One notable aspect of Weiser’s article is that, as he (e.g. in the competition for resources between different
lays out a vision for a radically different form of com- forms of public and private transportation) reflect
putational experience, the settings into which those de- arrangements of power and control. These power
vices are to be deployed and the activities that they are geometries also affect the relationships between spaces
used to support remain largely unexamined. Weiser’s and the means by which those relations are brought
ubiquitous computing technology is used in workplaces; about; for instance, reflecting on the area of London
it relies on large fixed infrastructure investments by where she lives, Massey comments: ‘‘It is (or ought to
commercial entities; it is directed towards the needs of be) impossible even to begin thinking about Kilburn
corporate efficiency. Weiser’s ubiquitous computing is a High Road without bringing into play half the world
tool for labor. and a considerable amount of British imperialist his-
From the perspective of a ‘ubicomp of the present,’ tory’’ [45: 65]. Similarly, when we think about ubiqui-
we can note that Weiser was entirely correct in one re- tous computing technologies and infrastructures, the
gard—that the purposes to which people would put patterns by which they are introduced into existing
computational devices are not radically new ones, but spaces and the needs around which they are designed
rather reflect existing social and cultural needs. How- and for which they are harnessed, we are immediately

presented with the need to acknowledge the ways in engineering—is remarkably persistent. There is a fun-
which technologies both exploit and reproduce a range damental technological determinism at work, and Tol-
of power concentrations and relationships. mie et al. [48] note the irony of, on the one hand,
Second, when we see ubiquitous computing as a Weiser’s attempt to move beyond the idea of the ‘‘dra-
feature of the present rather than of the future, then we matic computer’’ and, on the other, an inevitable re-
are forced to contend with it as an inherently heteroge- search practice celebrating ingenious design. Weiser and
neous phenomenon. Standardization and consistency other early ubicomp visionaries provided an imaginative
can be imagined in the future, but a technology of the vehicle for understanding the encounter between tech-
present is one that operates in a thoroughly heteroge- nology and the social world, one in which technology
neous environment. This applies at all levels. Consider, would play a liberating role. This is both an alluring
for example, the radically different forms of govern- vision and a common one [49]. However, while the
mentality at work in a comparison between the US and majority of ubicomp’s research attention has tradition-
Singaporian approaches to Internet information provi- ally been devoted to the proximate future—the future
sion (or even, for that matter, between US and Euro- just around the corner—we have suggested instead that,
pean approaches to mobile telephony regulation.) At the some 15 years after Weiser originally formulated it,
same time, on a much smaller scale, the interplay of ubiquitous computing has indeed arrived. If the avail-
standards for telecommunications render an apparently ability of devices with wireless data communications and
‘‘invisible’’ infrastructure highly visible in terms of the powerful computational properties is anything to go by,
range of concerns to which its users must be oriented. A then it is hard to deny that computation is already
technology of the present is inherently one that is de- ubiquitous. This raises two interesting questions—first,
ployed and operated in a fragmented world. why did we fail to notice it, and second, what should we
Third, and relatedly, focusing on ubicomp in the do as a consequence?
present as an inherently heterogeneous phenomenon We have suggested that our failure to notice the ar-
suggests that a significant aspect of ubicomp’s research rival of ubiquitous computing is rooted (at least in part)
agenda should be the ways in which heterogeneity is in the idea of seamless interoperation and homogeneity.
currently manifested and managed. We have discussed The ubicomp world was meant to be clean and orderly;
ubicomp as inherently messy; so how do people both it turns out instead to be a messy one. Rather than being
manage and even exploit this messiness in current invisible or unobtrusive, ubicomp devices are highly
interaction? From an ethnographic perspective, this present, visible, and branded, but perhaps still unre-
might take the form of Star [36] ‘ethnography of markable in the sense explored by Tolmie et al. Ubi-
infrastructure,’ using the multiple manifestations of comp has turned out to be characterized by
infrastructure as an analytic lens as in, for example, improvisation and appropriation; by technologies lashed
Star and Ruhleder’s [46] exploration of the infra- together and maintained in synch only through consid-
structure of scientific collaboration. From a techno- erable efforts; by surprising appropriations of technol-
logical perspective, it might take the form of the ogy for purposes never imagined by their inventors and
explorations of ‘seamful design’ being explored by often radically opposed to them; by widely different
Chalmers and colleagues [47], in which the variability social, cultural and legislative interpretations of the
of infrastructure and of access become a resource for goals of technology; by flex, slop, and play.
active engagement. We do not take this to be a depressing conclusion.
Instead, we take the fact that we already live in a world
of ubiquitous computing to be a rather wonderful thing.
The challenge, now, is to understand it.
8 Conclusions
Acknowledgments This work was supported in part by the National
Ubicomp has been tremendously successful, on two Science Foundation under awards 0133749, 0205724, 0326105,
counts. First, it has been successful as a research en- 0527729, and 0524033, and by a grant from Intel Corporation. We
deavor. In addition to being a topic in its own right, it is are grateful to Matthew Chalmers and Beki Grinter for insightful
comments on earlier drafts, and to the anonymous reviewers for
also a central aspect of the research agenda of many their insightful remarks and criticisms.
other areas of computer science research, from theory to
embedded systems. On the second front, it has been
successful as a technological agenda, so that Weiser’s References
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