Mission
Statement
To
see hofw information technology can be diffused into everyday objects
and settings, and to see how this can lead to new ways of supporting
and enhancing people's lives that go above and beyond what is possible
with the computer today.
Specifically, the initiative looks at how to make ‘information
artefacts’ based on new software and hardware architectures
that are integrated into everyday objects.
It looks at how collections of artefacts can act together, so as
to produce new behaviour and new functionality.
It investigates the new approaches for designing for collections
of artefacts in everyday settings, and how to ensure that people’s
experience in these new environments is coherent and engaging.
A vision
of the Future
A
vision of the future is one in which our world of everyday objectsand
places becomes infused and augmented with information  processing
and exchange.
In this vision, the technology providing these capabilities is unobtrusively
merged with real world objects and places, so that in a sense it
disap-pears into the background, taking
on a role more similar to electricity -
an invisible pervasive medium.
As a consequence, human-centred notions, such as real objects and
everyday settings, can come into foreground, rather than the computer-centric
ones which have determined the evolution of the computer-as-we-know
it.
It
offers the opportunity of seeing how objects can become augmented
with new properties and qualities and how these can be designed
to enrich everyday living in completely different ways.
Artefacts will be able to adapt and change, not just in a random
fashion but based on how people use and interact with them. Together,
new functionalities and new forms of use will emerge that will
enrich everyday life, resulting in an everyday world that is more
more ‘alive’ and ‘deeply intercon-nected’ that
our current day understanding.
Moving
towards the vision
As
much of the above represents un-charted territory, the aim of the
disappearing
computer is to explore the underlying concepts and methods that
will ‘set the
trends’ for future development.
In this spirit, the initiative will focus on three inter-linked
objectives:
 The
initiative addresses these three objectives with a number of independent
research projects that have been selected
from the call for proposals. Individually, projects address specific
topics; collectively they address the three objectives as a whole.
In addition, promising and complementary work that emerges from
the various projects is able to be integrated by new projects that
can be created throughout the duration of the initiative.
In order to maintain a sense of direction and coherence across all
the projects, a number of support activities
has been defined. A network made up of a representation of all project
partners will run these activities.
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