Dartmouth Events

Abstract:  30 years after Weiser's inspirational words on ubiquitous computing, I revisit one of the premises of that work.  I propose a new era of self-sustainable computing through the development of computational materials that can be truly woven into the fabric of everyday life and create decades of inspiration for new researchers across a variety of disciplines. I will define and demonstrate some initial examples of computational materials and explain why self-sustainable computing provides a compelling vision for computing in a post-Moore's Law world.

Biography:  Gregory D. Abowd is a Regents’  Professor and J.Z. Liang Chair in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, where he has been on the faculty since 1994. An applied computer scientist, Dr. Abowd's research interests concern how the advanced information technologies of mobile, wearable and ubiquitous computing impact our everyday lives when they are seamlessly integrated into our living spaces. Dr. Abowd's work has involved applications as diverse as education (Classroom 2000), home life (The Aware Home) and health (technology and autism, CampusLife). He and his current and former students are active inventors of new sensing and interaction technologies. He has recently helped to co-create an interdisciplinary research effort, COSMOS, which investigates the collaboration of materials, manufacturing, electronics, computing and design to explore an alternative future computing industry. Dr. Abowd is an ACM Fellow and a member of the ACM SIGCHI Academy.