The Computer for the 21st Century
Scientific American, 265 (3):
94--104 (September 1991)Abstract
The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it. Silicon-based information technology is still far from having become part of the environment. More than 50 million personal computers have been sold, and nonetheless the computer remains largely in a world of its own. It is approachable only through complex jargon that has nothing to do with the tasks for which which people actually use computers. The arcane aura that surrounds personal computers is not just a user interface problem. My colleagues and I at PARC think that the idea of a personal computer itself is misplaced, and that the vision of laptop machines, dynabooks and knowledge navigators is only a transitional step toward achieving the real potential of information technology. We are trying to conceive a new way of thinking about computers in the world, one that takes into account the natural human environment and allows the computers themselves to vanish into the background. Such a disappearance is a fundamental consequence not of technology, but of human psychology. Whenever people learn something sufficiently well, they cease to be aware of it. Ubiquitous computing, i.e. the idea of integrating computers seamlessly into the world at large, runs counter to a number of present-day trends.
