Various applications and services place more and more requirements upon pervasive devices. These often require that we use several different operating equipment, since it may be impossible for us to solve different problems with a single equipment. Different equipment, however, require different access and management approaches, so we have to learn to operate them before we can use them well. There are already well-accepted consistent and natural approaches of access and management, such as remote control and voice command, but they can only be used on certain equipment.
We have seen powerful machines like ATMs or Copiers that are composed of multiple components to perform comprehensive functions and capabilities. However, those components usually cannot be removed and reused on other machines or for other purposes. For example, the sound system of your car may never work in your house, and any ATM printer would not print a copy of a memo on your PDA. The problem is that the machines are optimized only for specific applications and that they and their components are not suitable for performing other functions. Whenever new applications come up and old machine could not help, new machines must be designed and manufactured and old machines are probably abandoned together with all components, which is but a waste of resource.