Calm Technology

Chapter 1. Designing for the Next 50 Billion Devices

Four Waves of Computing

THE FIRST WAVE OF COMPUTING, from 1940 to about 1980, was dominated by many people serving one computer. This was the era of the large and limited mainframe computer. Mainframe use was largely reserved for technically proficient experts who took on the task of learning difficult, poorly designed interfaces as a source of professional pride.

The second wave, or desktop era, had one person to one computer. The computer increased in power, but it was still tethered into place. We saw the era of desktop publishing and the user interface replace difficult-to-use text inputs of the generation before.

The third wave, Weiser posited, would be ushered in by the Internet, with many desktops connected through widespread distributed computing. This would be the transition between the desktop era and ubiquitous computing. It would enable many smaller objects to be connected to a larger network.

This final wave, just beginning (and unevenly distributed), has many computers serving each person, everywhere in the world. Mark Weiser called this wave the era of “Ubiquitous Computing,” or “Ubicomp.”

Weiser’s idea of Ubiquitous Computing was that devices would outnumber individuals globally by a factor of five or more. In other words, if there’s a world population of 10 billion (which Weiser considered not so far-fetched in the 21st century), then 50 billion devices globally is a conservative estimate. Obviously, the ratio will ...