6 Conclusion

This presentation has been very much device-centric. As such, it has emphasised what could correspond to the intermediate stages of an evolution from smart devices to ambient computing. The end-point of this evolution, which began with the multiplication and diversification of devices, could be their disappearance, a subjective disappearance from the user 's viewpoint, when devices vanish behind the service they offer, behind their informational abstraction, and cease to be the primary focus of the user's attention.

As catchphrases go, attentive environment and ambient networking characterise best this elusive vision of interfaces to information/communication services getting widely distributed and de- localised , implemented in a fully dynamic and adaptive way by invisible and interchangeable devices. For all the hype, there may be too much of an archetypal technology- fiction dream in this vision of a sleek, information- saturated environment. It does probably give short shrift to the human craving for unique material things that may become their own and only things, not unlike collector etchings, tamagochis, teddy bears or garden gnomes.

Fetishism apart, a less technology-driven vision would probably refrain from delocalising interfaces altogether, and retain, stripped of any legacy technical appendage, the uniqueness of these personal things, be they books, diaries or old-fashioned "terminals", for the sake of themselves , for the pleasure of holding and touching them, if only for their intuitive iconicity and their snug, familiar thingness .