Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing

Thesis 31

Everyware is a strategy for the reduction of cognitive overload.

Happily, there are also less distressing arguments in support of everyware. One of the original motivations for conducting research into post-PC interfaces, in fact, was that they might ameliorate the sense of overload that so often attends the use of information technology.

An early culmination of this thinking was Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown's seminal "The Coming Age of Calm Technology," which argued that the ubiquity of next-generation computing would compel its designers to ensure that it "encalmed" its users. In their words, "if computers are everywhere, they ...