Physical World Mouse

Buxton, a senior researcher at Microsoft gave an interesting interview about ubiquitous computing.

Any product designer who thinks what they're designing is the thing in the box is completely missing the point.

For example, I play this game when I give talks where I say "e-commerce" and ask people what they think of. People often say Amazon, IBM, eBay. But I'd say maybe the company Symbol would be the right company. Well, you say, who the hell is Symbol?

They make bar code scanners at the supermarket. You realize there is essentially a PC. Instead of the mouse it has another input device, called a bar code scanner. It's all transparent.

Will Symbol provide the platform for m-commerce?

It's so seamless that we don't even notice it.

The cellphone will be your "mouse" or remote control for the physical world. Many don't realize it yet.