Thesis 54

Many problems posed by everyware are highly resistant to comprehensive solution in the near term.

By now, the outlines of this thing we've been sketching are clear.

We've taken concepts originating in logistics, chip design, network theory, cultural anthropology, computer-supported collaborative work, and dozens of other disciplines, and fused them into a computing that has become genuinely ubiquitous in our lives, as present in our thoughts as it will be in our tools and jobs and cities.

Most of these "small pieces" are matters of the real world and the present daya few, admittedly, only as incremental steps or standards adopted but not yet implemented. Even in many of the latter cases, though, we can reasonably expect that the necessary pieces of the puzzle will appear within the next year or two.

But even though we already have most of the componentry we'll ever require, there are excellent reasons to suppose that everyware will take decades to mature fully. Sprawling, amorphous, it touches on so many areas of our lives, complicates social and political debates that are already among the thorniest our societies have ever faced. In some cases, indeed, we may never fully master the challenges involved. The following are some of the factors that are actively inhibiting either the development or the chances for adoption of ubiquitous computing.