Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing

Front Cover
New Riders, Mar 10, 2010 - Computers - 288 pages

Ubiquitous computing--almost imperceptible, but everywhere around us--is rapidly becoming a reality. How will it change us? how can we shape its emergence?

Smart buildings, smart furniture, smart clothing... even smart bathtubs. networked street signs and self-describing soda cans. Gestural interfaces like those seen in Minority Report. The RFID tags now embedded in everything from credit cards to the family pet.

All of these are facets of the ubiquitous computing author Adam Greenfield calls "everyware." In a series of brief, thoughtful meditations, Greenfield explains how everyware is already reshaping our lives, transforming our understanding of the cities we live in, the communities we belong to--and the way we see ourselves.

What are people saying about the book?

"Adam Greenfield is intense, engaged, intelligent and caring. I pay attention to him. I counsel you to do the same." --HOWARD RHEINGOLD, AUTHOR, SMART MOBS: THE NEXT SOCIAL REVOLUTION

"A gracefully written, fascinating, and deeply wise book on one of the most powerful ideas of the digital age--and the obstacles we must overcome before we can make ubiquitous computing a reality."--STEVE SILBERMAN, EDITOR, WIRED MAGAZINE

"Adam is a visionary. he has true compassion and respect for ordinary users like me who are struggling to use and understand the new technology being thrust on us at overwhelming speed."--REBECCA MACKINNON, BERKMAN CENTER FOR INTERNET AND SOCIETY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Everyware is an AIGA Design Press book, published under Peachpit's New Riders imprint in partnership with AIGA.

From inside the book

Contents

What is everyware?
9
How is everyware different from what were used to?
35
Whats driving the emergence of everyware?
89
What are the issues we need to be aware of?
121
Who gets to determine the shape of everyware?
159
When do we need to begin prepareing for everyware?
175
How might we safeguard our prerogatives in an everyware world?
225
Index
262
Copyright

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Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 11 - ubiquitous computing." This is different from PDA's, dynabooks. or information at your fingertips. It is invisible, everywhere computing that does not live on a personal device of any sort, but is in the woodwork everywhere.
Page 125 - Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context — a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.
Page 221 - The 1. Build it as safe as you can, and build into it all the safeguards to personal values that you can imagine. 2. Tell the world at large that you are doing something dangerous.
Page 2 - Whatever improvement we hope to achieve by overlaying our lives with digital mediation, we'll have to balance against the risk of unduly complicating that which is presently straightforward, breaking that which now works, and introducing new levels of frustration and inconvenience into all the most basic operations of our lives.
Page 115 - They'll reach beyond the big problems of corporate finance and school homework to the little annoyances such as where are the car keys, can I get a parking place, and is that shirt I saw last week at Macy's still on the rack?
Page 109 - intelligent highway systems' or the 'smart homes' that are appearing on the market in which all data flows into, and out of, the home are part of an integrated, continuously monitored system. In an engineered society, the goal is to eliminate or limit violations by control of the physical and social environment.
Page 93 - Computers will die. They're dying in their present form. They're just about dead as distinct units. A box, a screen, a keyboard. They're melting into the texture of everyday life...even the word 'computer

About the author (2010)

Adam Greenfield is head of design direction for service and user interface design at Nokia. He was previously an instructor at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, where he co-taught a class called Urban Computing. He lives and works in Helsinki, Finland.

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