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A free London conference on ubiquitous computing:
Is ubiquitous computing making a real difference?
Researcher, Practitioner, and Public Conference
April 19th 2004, Gresham College, London
Computers have changed our lives more than any other technology.
Ubicomp and similar areas such as mobile, pervasive, and wearable
computing are an exciting part of the future, but does technology
solve or create human problems? More importantly, are the benefits
and problems of ubicomp the same as what the public thinks? The
public is arguably the main reason for doing the research, as our
research funds come largely from them and they are the main consumers
of the technologies that have enabled ubicomp to thrive. However, the
public is also largely unaware of the greater impact of ubicomp.
What will ubicomp do for our futures? While ubicomp promises to make
our lives better through convenience and communication, the world has
changed dramatically since Mark Weiser first coined the term in 1991.
Privacy, democracy, and terrorism have all become embedded on the
collective conscious of us all - do the (mostly unrealised?) benefits
of ubicomp still outweigh the probable misuses?
http://www.uclic.ucl.ac.uk/ubiconf/
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