Pervasive computing, what is?

Since the beginning of the Computing Era the relationship between humans and computers have changed dramatically. At first there were many users connecting to one computer (mainframe), in the PC years we have 1 user per computer and in the pervasive computing years we have a diversity of correspondence between computers and users, many computers and many users.

Pervasive computing is all about technology disappearing, helping but not interfering.

Such systems have to deal with the contextual information (context) which characterizes the current situation of the involved entities (users, mobile devices, environment, etc.). The interaction between the user and such systems has to be less intruding as long as the latter recognizes the current user situation and adapts its functions accordingly.

Mark Weiser introduced the term "Calm Technology" as the "technology that informs as without requiring our full attention", which literally means that the user is consuming what he really needs without getting overwhelmed by information. Pervasive Computing, needs computers to be Decentralized, Differentiated, Simple and easy to provide connectivity with devices.

The main challenge arises in the management of those devices as they are decentralized. We have devices that serve the same purpose but through different user experience. As connectivity is very important on these devices, new standards of connectivity needs to be invented or enhanced so that we will have M2M (machine to machine) connectivity and interoperability.

Pervasive computing is all about simplicity. Diverse systems need to define their operations in a simple way providing an easy to use interface transparent to the end users. Future lies before us, are you properly on board?