he history of comput-ers is actually quite simple.

In the beginning there were nocomputers. Then there were com-puters. And then there were noneagain. Between the second and thethird stage, they simply disappeared.They didn’t go away completely.

First they faded into the background. Thenthey actually merged with the background.

These different stages of computingcame to be known in terms of their centralmotifs: The initial stage after they emergedfrom the back rooms into the public wasthe era of personal computing, whichspanned the 1980s and early 1990s. Withthe advent of the Internet and the WorldWide Web, this era seamlessly became theage of social computing, sometimes calledubiquitous computing, which began inthe mid-1990s and lasted some twodecades. This age was characterized bymillions of computers, information appli-ances and storage devices that were inter-connected—creating a vast informationmedium that supported all kinds of com-munities of interest. This new mediumoffered access to nearly any informationresiding anyplace in the world.

Roughly 15 years into the 21st centu-ry, the social computing stage morphedinto the period called ecological or sym-biotic computing. Structural matter(atoms) and computing (bits) becameinseparable. Zillions of sensors, effectorsand logical elements (made of organic andinorganic materials) were interconnectedvia wireless, peer-to-peer technologies,producing smart, malleable stuff used tobuild smart appliances, buildings, roadsand more. It was during this era that com-puters disappeared. In their place, nearlyevery physical artifact harbored some com-putationally based brainpower that helpedit know where it was, what was near it,when it was moved and so on. In a way, the

inorganic world took on organic properties,using computing to transparently modu-late responses to the environment.

But how did this come to be? Duringthe personal computing stage, computersbecame increasingly powerful, but theyalso became harder to use. Moore’s Law,stating that computing power would dou-ble every 18 months, seemed to hold forhardware. But robust software never couldkeep up. The result was that personal com-puters remained hard to use. The graphi-cal user interfaces of the 1980s, at least,made systems somewhat manageable. Buteven that degree of usability faded in thesecond era of computing, when designerstried to extend this interface motif to nav-igating the vast information and docu-ment spaces of the Web. Those who surfedthe Net all day long just ended up feelingdisoriented or lost. More casual users feltoverwhelmed with the volumes of irrele-vant information given them by their intel-ligent agents, or “bots” (as these were oftencalled at the turn of the 21st century).

Eventually the Web became a jungle ofinformation pathways with no cues to helpfolks to their destinations, much like thecenter of a megacity without reliable signsor guides. Urban architects and social the-orists were called on to help technologistssee the resources that lay latent in the socialand physical context. Humans, it was point-ed out, used the context around objects andevents to navigate the world and get thingsdone. For example, they found out whatwas worth reading when a friend recom-mended a book or when they heard aboutan important article at work.

It turned out that interaction withother people was the key. Humans want-ed technology to help them keep betterconnected to each other and to enhancetheir awareness of events around them.But they didn’t want to have to attend toevery little thing; all they wanted was a

86 T E C H N O L O G Y R E V I E W J a n u a r y / F e b r u a r y 2 0 0 1

The following document

arrived at the offices

of Technology Review

in a time capsule

dated 2020. It purports

to be a history of

computers written

by computer scientist-

turned-historian

John Seely Brown.

In the late 20th century,

Dr. Brown served as

director of Xerox

Corporation’s Palo Alto

Research Center.

Where Have All the Computers Gone?

ILLUSTRATION BY JAMES STEINBERG

virtual awareness that would take placesubconsciously, much like how the visu-al system works in the physical world.

About the same time, devices such aslaptops, pagers, phones and Personal Dig-ital Assistants (PDAs) shrank so muchthat an alternative to the keyboard wasnecessary. Speech input helped, but thena major shift occurred. Computationaldevices started to have sensors, accelerom-eters and miniature Global PositioningSystems built into them. Such units let thedevice know where it was and what washappening. And as things shrank fur-ther—leading to “zero volume” devices—users came to know even more abouttheir surroundings. Furthermore, peoplecould interact with these devices using thesame gestures and other practices theyalready used to communicate with eachother. Even a person’s key chain or PDAcould interpret gestures of waving, tilting,squeezing and shaking as its owner inter-acted with it. For instance, users would tiltthe device to scroll through a Web page,shake it to erase something and squeeze itto select an item, much like a mouse click.It all seemed so natural, taking on theproperties of an animated conversation.

The interface became transparent startingaround the turn of the century, and by2005 such interfaces were everywhere.

Although embedding these sensorsand primitive effectors into appliances wasfirst done to enable people to interact withphysically shrinking devices, a more sur-prising use of these innovations emerged,eventually leading to the era of ecologicalcomputing. In this era, in addition to build-ing sensors, accelerometers and effectorsinto devices, designers began putting themin the environment. Literally millions ofthese items were placed into road surfacesso that a highway could sense the flow oftraffic and then communicate that infor-mation along its surface.

Thus today, cars are aware of trafficpatterns around them and use that aware-ness to route themselves accordingly. Thishelps avoid congestion and with it pollu-tion. In similar ways, sensors in officebuildings, houses and factories respondin subtle but effective ways to minimizedetrimental effects and harmonize humanactivity with the environment. Indeed,through computing, our environment hasbeen made aware of itself, giving rise to theera of ecological or symbiotic computing.

As we now look back we breathe a sighof relief—for the technological “roadahead” was not nearly as straight as BillGates portrayed in his classic 1995 book.Indeed, a profound wake-up call wasissued a short while later by Bill Joy, who,like many futurists before him, painted aone-sided dystopian view of nanocom-puters and robots taking over the worldand enslaving mankind. It’s true that tech-nology remains problematic. But thosewho believed in technological determinismwere again proved wrong. Society respond-ed, the public became better educatedabout the perils of radical new technolo-gies, and new institutions emerged to helpmediate the dialogue between the utopianand dystopian views. This co-evolutionbetween society and technology may nothave come as quickly as some wished.Nonetheless, it occurred in a way thatforced the technological world to becomeless arrogant and more humble. ◊

John Seely Brown is chief scientist of Xeroxand chief innovation officer at 12 Entre-preneuring. He is co-author of The SocialLife of Information (Harvard BusinessSchool Press, 2000).

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