Smart Environments: some challenges for the computing community (Introduction)

Building computing systems that exhibit intelligence, adaptability and seamless interaction is a challenging task in and of itself. It is a task that synthesises the expertise and concerns of a range of computing disciplines. The goal of such research, in or opinion, should be to move these intelligent, adaptable, heavily interacting systems into everyday life in such a way that they become as commonplace as other artifacts in our environment — until in effect they become essentially invisible to their users. Embedding such systems into the very environments we inhabit, rather than crafting them as tailored environments in their own right, posses a significant research challenge that can only be addressed in an interdisciplinary manner.