Paper Review: The Computer for the 21st Century

M. Weiser, The Computer for the 21st Century, Scientific American, Sept 1991


This article predicts a charming future for ubiquitous computing, or sometime refers to as "embodied vitality". The basic idea of ubiquitous computing is to let the computer blend in the environment. To use a computer, user will not have to learn the specialized instructions, neither go through a arduous training. User could easily get access to a computer and utilize its functions without noticing computer's existence. The author predicted the future of computer by describing a day of Sal's. For me it's like reading a Jules Veme's novel, today we are able to realize most part of the author's description, but still a few steps away.

Maybe not that right
The author presents a nice introduction to ubiquitous computing, but I think writing is a false analogy to ubiquitous computing. Compare with paper and pencil as the basic tools for writing, computing requires more complicated infrastructure and much more efforts to maintain it. The complexity of hardware and software should not be neglected, since they are essential challenges for computing.

I think electricity would be a better example. Firstly, we want using computing resource as a utility such that we can simply plug in and start using it. Secondly, we use electricity in a standard way by following specifications like voltage, currents, etc. This is the similar case in computing, we need standardizations for communication. Thirdly, I feel that electricity is a better analogy to computing, because both of them can be a ubiquitous technology. Writing, on the other hand usually is considered as a skill.

The author identified two crucial issues for ubiquitous computing: location and scale. I agree with his opinion that they are necessary for provide good services, but I think connectivity is the most important issue for ubiquitous computing. Back in 1991, the GPS system had not been established (GPS became fully operational in 1994, Wikipedia), so locate the position was a problem at that time, but not anymore. As for the scale issues, designed devices in different sizes to handle different task is a straight forward idea. And with current technology, we are no longer limited by the size of screen, computing power, storage capacity etc.

The most important issues of ubiquitous computing is how to interact with people and other computers, thus connectivity is the key. If the connection is fast and stable, as the cloud computing promises, each individual computer do not have to have a powerful CPU and large storage device, it will provide a cheap and easy-to-use computing environment.

Something is missing
It's interesting to compare what the author expected for the future with what we have accomplished in the last 20 years. Screen size and resolution is no longer a problem, we can made it light and cheap, and even with very low power consumption (electronic ink for example); the author made a very precise prediction of the increase of storage capacity. But I think he would be surprised by the development of EEPROM technology that date back to his time. Today flash memory build by EEPROM is one of the most promising storage devices; plug-and-pay/hot swapping is very common for new devices; numerous researches has been conducted on distributed systems. But, besides those hardware advancements, to make author's vision of Sal's day come true, network connectivity is the key. The author did not pay enough attention to this issue.

Future opportunity
To me, the most interesting idea of this paper is to use computer as a scrap paper. We have seen some prototype of this kind of service. For example, when I login to a computer in the library, the Window will pick up my personal configuration and data ("profile" in Microsoft's word) from the domain server and Active Directory service provide authentication and access control to all the computers in the library.

Another example would be carrying a flash drive with a bootable system or virtual machine. But they are not ubiquitous. Firstly, pause a work at one computer and resume it on another is quite time consuming in most of the current implementations. Secondly, moving work to different devices is difficult. Thirdly, collaboration hardware/software is not easy to use.

Cloud computing seems to be a good solution for the problem mentioned above, as computing and storage are handled by the cloud, user essentially login to a remote computer. This makes resume and collaboration easier to implement. Most of the cloud product use browser as its interface, potentially, all the devices that can load a browser can be used to access the cloud. This makes it very easy to access computer resources. Microsoft published their Office 365 product this July, which has many features of ubiquitous computing.

Another luminous idea I learned from the author is the design for control panel. As he mentioned in the board size computer, it's a good idea to make control panel moveable rather than fix it on the bottom. It reminded me of my previous experience. I used to work on a large touch screen all-in-one computer, it has a 25'' monitor with 1920X1080 resolution. The problem is, on that resolution the start button is quite small, and makes it hard to click. It would be nice if the control panel will come up wherever I want it on the screen, and make the buttons and icons resizable. I'm surprised that no one has made such a control panel yet!

Expectations
Cloud computing will grow, flexible control panel will come up, but I think the future of computer is also depend on the advancement of other subjects, especially physics and chemistry. In the paper author mentioned that he hopes there could be an all-in-one transmitter which can handle all the radio frequencies. As far as I know, wireless, radio and Bluetooth on Smartphone are still implemented in separate modules and do not share an antenna.

Another expectation is for battery, I read that the capacity of traditional Li-ion based battery has reached it theoretical limit, further improvement is not economically efficient. If we could find other efficient way to get energy, or reduce energy consumption, it will greatly reduce the size of current computer devices, and make gadgets last longer.

Conclusion
The author presents a charming description of ubiquitous computing. After 20 years, some of his vision still has not been realized. Based on the technology at his time, he made an impressive prediction to the further, but he overlooked the importance of network and connectivity. With the help from the development in basic science and mass production to reduce cost, we will be able to realize his prediction in the not too distance future.