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Yesterday's Tomorrows: Notes on Ubiquitous Computing's Pers Ubiquit Comput (2006) DOI 10.1007/s00779-006-0071-x ORIGINAL ARTICLE 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- ceived, framed, and understood. In this paper, we are G. Bell (&) Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA, USA concerned with the balance between past, present, and E-mail: [email protected] 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: [email protected] 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
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