Living in a Smart Environment - Implications for the Coming Ubiquitous 
Information Society 

Marc Langheinrich, Vlad Coroama, Jürgen Bohn, Friedemann Mattern Institute 
for Pervasive Computing ETH Zurich 8092 Zurich, Switzerland 
{langhein,coroama,bohn,mattern}@inf.ethz.ch 

Abstract 

A good instrument for understanding the possible blessings and perils of new 
technology in general and ubiquitous computing in particular is the 
development and analysis of scenarios of the future. This paper presents some 
of the consequences implied by several such scenarios that have been developed 
in the interdisciplinary research project "Living in a Smart Environment - 
Implications of Ubiquitous Computing". To show how manifold and far-reaching 
such consequences might be, the paper emphasizes three particularly relevant 
implications. First, it discusses some of the deep economic paradigm shifts 
that could arise from a large-scale deployment of ubiquitous computing 
technologies. Second, it presents some thoughts on the impact smart 
environments might have on privacy. Last, it investigates issues of social 
compatibility and dependability of future ubiquitous computing applications, 
considering both impending pitfalls and emerging opportunities. 

Keywords: Ubiquitous computing, social implications, scenarios of the future, 
new economic paradigms, dependability, privacy.