Ubiquitous computing has been on the agenda for a while now. This concept was in fact created by the much regretted Mark Weiser from Xerox PARC in the 1970′s (see a reprint of the founding article, the computer of the 21st century here). It was really visionary. Many would sneer at the concept but look at it: Tablet PC’s have already been on the market for at least 4 or 5 years. They haven’t been hugely successful but the concept is still evolving. Pda’s are now in their prime and evolving to become a) smartphones and b) ultramobile PCs such as the amazing HTC advantage which was released in April 2007 with a brand new flash-memory disk and a windows mobile OS which enables to turn the machine on and off instantly (still too expensive though at €1000 per unit) or even c) the astounding ‘cellular book‘ by Polymer Vision. I will also recommend an article found on Time magazine describing Paul Allen’s latest UMPC initiative called Flipstart: A Billionaire’s Bet, the mini computers war.
All these initiatives are in a way derived from Weiser’s vision of the ubiquitous computer, some thirty years ago. unfortunaltely, none of them has really clinched it yet for us to throw away our clunky laptops and be able to connectly and work and entertain ourselves freely, on the move, at a reasonable price. But there is that sense though that we are getting there soon and that we will soon get a computer of the 22nd century at a reasonable price.
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:08 pm
The future looks good!
July 13th, 2007 at 10:09 am
[...] I admit I don’t even have much merit.As the late PARC’s Mark Weiser once remarked (see ubiquitous computing article here), writing is the best technology ever invented since it works everywhere, it’s always [...]
July 28th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
[...] is awesome, I admit I don’t even have much merit.As the late PARC’s Mark Weiser once remarked (see ubiquitous computing article here), writing is the best technology ever invented since it works everywhere, it’s always available [...]
January 12th, 2008 at 9:49 am
[...] Mark Weiser, chercheur renommé du PARC de Xerox et décédé trop tôt il y a quelques années (voir l’article sur l’informatique omniprésente ici (ubiquitous computing en Anglais), l’écriture est probablement la meilleure technologie qui ait jamais été inventée, car [...]
January 12th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
[...] Mark Weiser, chercheur renommé du PARC de Xerox et décédé trop tôt il y a quelques années (voir l’article sur l’informatique omniprésente ici (ubiquitous computing en Anglais), l’écriture est probablement la meilleure technologie qui ait jamais été inventée, car elle [...]
August 27th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
[...] que nous sommes véritablement tout prêt de la disponibilité en tout temps et en tout lieu alias ‘ubiquitous computing’ selon Mark Weiser du Parc). Selon lui donc l’infrastructure informatique effectue une mue pour alléger le [...]
September 9th, 2011 at 9:29 am
[...] Erik Sherman’s piece on the death of the PC. After all, as the late Mark Weiser (the true inventor of tablets) originally came up with his idea of “ubiquitous computing” in the 1970′s, one [...]
March 14th, 2012 at 10:17 am
[...] est devenu une chimère, un Graal impossible. Et d’une certaine manière, cela me rappelle l’article du célèbre et regretté Mark Weiser sur l’ordinateur du 21ème siècle : quand on a fini d’oublier qu’on utilise une technologie, c’est que celle ci a [...]