Anti-mega Outboard Brain (a blog with a great title) has an interesting post on Ubicomp (i.e. ubiquitous computing), suggesting user desires (“I want my music collection available at all times, wherever i go”) and plotting out what exists and what doesn’t on the way to attaining that goal. AMOB does a better job at explaining than I do, so read the entire post.
Ubicomp isn’t a box you will buy from your local electronics retailer, plug in, and switch on. It’s lots of really small pieces loosely, sloppily joined – glued together.
Take the idea of “I can communicate with people wherever I am” – surely a big part of ubicomp. I know this technology isn’t everywhere (ubiquity is here, just not evenly distributed), but I think that it’s safe to say the mobile phone has pretty much made this a reality.