Calm Technology
After his untimely death, certain ambitious academics and big industrial companies like IBM have tried to hijack and exploit Mark Weiser&#x27;s original peaceful, unobtrusive concepts of &quot;Ubiquitous Computing&quot; and &quot;Calm Technology&quot;, by rebranding it in-your-face and up-your-yin-yang &quot;Pervasive Computing&quot;.<p>The term &quot;Pervasive Computing&quot; is IBM&#x27;s attempted rebranding of &quot;Ubiquitous Computing&quot; to make it seem less calm, more paternalistic and penetrating, like nanotech gray goo spreading out and filling the whole world, that appeals more to military funding and commercial exploitation than to peaceful ethical applications.<p>It&#x27;s no surprise that the even more obviously phallic term &quot;The Internet of Things&quot; evolved from &quot;Pervasive Computing&quot;.<p>These articles makes some good points about the terms:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.computerworld.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;2593079&#x2F;ubiquitous--pervasive--sorry--they-don-t-compute.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.computerworld.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;2593079&#x2F;ubiquitous--pe...</a><p>&gt;Ubiquitous? Pervasive? Sorry, they don&#x27;t compute<p>&gt;I just found out that ubiquitous computing and pervasive computing aren&#x27;t the same thing. &quot;What?!?&quot; you&#x27;re saying. &quot;I&#x27;m shocked.&quot; Yes, brace yourselves. This time it appears to be the scientists, not the marketers, who adopted everyday terms to describe their once-futuristic technology, making things very confusing now that other folks are using those ordinary words -- sometimes interchangeably -- without their particular nuances in mind.<p>&gt;Now, I&#x27;m not going to blame anybody here -- they&#x27;re a lot smarter than I am, and they started their research a long time ago -- but I&#x27;m going to suggest that things have come far enough that there are easier ways to explain what is meant by these terms. First, let&#x27;s look at what they mean.<p>&gt;Ubiquitous means everywhere. Pervasive means &quot;diffused throughout every part of.&quot; In computing terms, those seem like somewhat similar concepts. Ubiquitous computing would be everywhere, and pervasive computing would be in all parts of your life. [...]<p>&gt;Where IBM is a leader in the pervasive computing universe -- it has a whole division, aptly called the Pervasive Computing division, devoted to it -- Xerox started the ubiquitous thing back in 1988. [...]<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com&#x2F;definition&#x2F;pervasive-computing-ubiquitous-computing" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com&#x2F;definition&#x2F;per...</a><p>&gt;pervasive computing (ubiquitous computing)<p>&gt;[...] The term pervasive computing followed in the late 1990s, largely popularized by the creation of IBM&#x27;s pervasive computing division. Though synonymous today, Professor Friedemann Mattern of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich noted in a 2004 paper that:<p>&gt;Weiser saw the term &#x27;ubiquitous computing&#x27; in a more academic and idealistic sense as an unobtrusive, human-centric technology vision that will not be realized for many years, yet [the] industry has coined the term &#x27;pervasive computing&#x27; with a slightly different slant. Though this also relates to pervasive and omnipresent information processing, its primary goal is to use this information processing in the near future in the fields of electronic commerce and web-based business processes. In this pragmatic variation -- where wireless communication plays an important role alongside various mobile devices such as smartphones and PDAs -- ubiquitous computing is already gaining a foothold in practice.<p>&gt;Pervasive computing and the internet of things<p>&gt;The internet of things (IoT) has largely evolved out of pervasive computing. Though some argue there is little or no difference, IoT is likely more in line with pervasive computing rather than Weiser&#x27;s original view of ubiquitous computing.<p>====<p>English Word Of The Day: PERVASIVE<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.espressoenglish.net&#x2F;english-word-of-the-day-pervasive&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.espressoenglish.net&#x2F;english-word-of-the-day-perv...</a><p>&gt;Hi students! Today’s adjective of the day is pervasive. Not persuasive – that’s a word meaning something that can easily persuade or convince you, change your mind. This is pervasive, with a V in the middle. Let’s say it together – pervasive. Per-VAS-ive<p>&gt;Something that is pervasive has the quality that it tends to spread and fill up an area, so that it ends up having a wide influence or effect. A simple example is a strong smell, maybe you cook with strong spices like curry and you could say that the smell of curry is pervasive. This doesn’t mean it’s good or bad, just that it tends to spread and fill the whole house.<p>&gt;We typically use this word to describe ideas, feelings, and trends that tend to spread and not stay small. For example, racism is a pervasive problem in many countries. It’s something that affects a lot of people, and society in general.<p>&gt;Or you could say that social media has become pervasive, because this technology has spread throughout the world and so many people use it, and it also affects our daily lives a lot.<p>&gt;So the adjective pervasive simply means widespread, but as I was looking up examples, I realized that we do often tend to use it for negative things.<p>&gt;A pervasive sense of inferiority would be a lack of confidence that impacts your whole life and your whole personality; a pervasive disease would be one that affects many systems throughout your body. And again we often talk about pervasive problems in society, like racism or poverty or depression, saying that they are pervasive means they affect a lot of people and wide areas of society.<p>&gt;Got it? So try to write your own sentence – what’s a pervasive problem in your company, your school, or your country? That’s all for today – thanks for joining me, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.