Foreword

It has been nearly two decades since the term "ubiquitous computing" burst into our research vernacular. One of the strengths, and one of the challenges, of "ubicomp" is that it is hard to pin down exactly what the intellectual core is. From the very beginning, ubicomp researchers have investigated both the bleeding edge technology challenges as well as the human-centered opportunities. There are other intellectual mergers of interest as well, including the bridge between the physical and the digital worlds and the (re-)merging of the academic communities of hardware and software.

But this very diversity of intellectual themes presents two challenges to our community, both of which motivate the need for a book like this one. First of all, for established researchers, we have to educate ourselves on the language and methods of disciplines different from the ones we have practiced for many years. Why? Because if we are to advance as an intellectual community, then we all need to embrace the inherent diversity in our thoughts and skills. While it is not strictly necessary that we become expert in all of the relevant subdisciplines of ubicomp represented in this book, it is necessary that we appreciate all of the perspectives and that we strive to make our own work more relevant and accessible to those many perspectives.

Second, and more importantly, we have to provide a foundation for future generations. I deeply believe that any interesting problem to explore in our everyday lives requires expertise from many disciplines and perspectives. Consequently, we have to train new researchers so that they will be able to stand on the results of the past and direct us as a community to go beyond where we are today. In short, our students must be empowered to be better than we are, or we face extinction as a relevant intellectual community.

Under the skillful guidance of John Krumm, the authors of these chapters have assembled a collection of well-written, tutorial style chapters on topics that have become core to research advances in ubiquitous computing over the past two decades. The result is a must-read text that provides an historical lens to see how ubicomp has matured into a multidisciplinary endeavor and will be an essential reference to researchers and those who want to learn more about this evolving field.

Professor Gregory D. Abowd, PhD

College of Computing

Georgia Institute of Technology

Atlanta, Georgia, USA