Mobile Ubiquitous Computing (We're Not There Yet)

This past weekend while strolling through the Louvre in Paris, I observed a number of people carrying hand held devices, which the museum provides as a type of guided tour. They would walk up a painting, glance left and right until they found the reference number, then awkwardly using a stylus, type that number into their device.

It made me think of Stefan Fountain's great talk at FOWA, that mobile computing is not about a device, but about using location and context to improve your experience. During his talk, he made a funny analogy to Captain Picard starting his journal entries with the current stardate. "Shouldn't the computer already know what the date is?!"

Requiring the user to enter a reference number into their device, is similar to Picard telling the computer the stardate, the device should just know what painting its close to. It wouldn't take magic, simply sticking an RFID tag on each painting, a reader on your device and you're in business.

I think ubiquitous computing is definitely coming, we're just not there yet...