Intimate Ubiquitous Computing (Workshop proceedings)

Abstract

Ubiquitous computing has long been associated with intimacy. Within the UbiComp literature we see intimacy portrayed as: knowledge our appliances and applications have about us and the minutiae of our day-to-day lives; physical closeness, incarnated on the body as wearable computing and in the body as nanobots; and computer mediated connection with friends, lovers, confidantes and colleagues. As appliances and computation move away from the desktop, and as designers move toward designing for emotion and social connection rather than usability and utility, we are poised to design technologies that are explicitly intimate and/or intimacy promoting. This workshop will: critically reflect on notions of intimacy; consider cultural and ethical issues in designing intimate technologies; and explore potential socio-technical design methods for intimate computing.