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Social Issues in Ubiquitous Computing Essays

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Evolving toward ubiquitous computing is the next step in technology. Computers will interact more and more with the environment. The social interactions are starting to be controlled using ubiquitous devices. Users have access to more information therefore social issues become important. In order to have a better understanding about the social issues in ubiquitous computing, aspects such as privacy of the individual, use and abuse of the state and opportunities for the individual empowerment will be discussed.
Mark Weiser defined ubiquitous computing in 1993 in his paper “Some Computer Science Issues in
Ubiquitous Computing” as “the method of enhancing computer use by making many computers available throughout the physical environment, …show more content…

It was 1991 when Weiser declared that he and his colleagues believe that ubiquitous computing will “emerge as the dominant mode of computer access over the next 20 years. [...] [It] will produce nothing fundamentally new, but by making everything faster and easier to do, with less strain and fewer mental gymnastics” [3]. He also says that the most important thing is that ubiquitous computing will overcome the problem of information overload, meaning that people will have more information available anytime and anyplace. I’ll conclude Wieser’s vision with his own words: “Specialized elements of hardware and software, connected by wires, radio waves and infrared, will be so ubiquitous that no one will notice their presence.” [3]

The notes from the course referred to ubiquitous computing as pervasive computing which actually means “existing everywhere”. Pervasive computing devices are completely connected and constantly available. The history of pervasive computing is divided into three waves [4], the first one being known as centralised mainframes, one computer to many users, the second era, called personal computing, where each user has a computer and the third era called Ubicomp where every user has many computers. Ubiquitous computing is therefore defined as the third wave of computing, the “UC” Era. This definition was given by Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown in “The Coming Age of Calm Technology” in 1996

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