Editorial Pointers

This month’s special section uncovers some of the most amazing technologies you’ll never see. That’s because they’ll be embedded everywhere and in pretty much everything.

"Embedding the Internet" presents a kaleidoscope of ubiquitous devices and appliances with sensing and communications capabilities to distribute computational power beyond its current borders. Guest editors Deborah Estrin, Ramesh Govindan, and John Heidemann, working with Senior Editor Andy Rosenbloom, invited many of the leading experts in this embedded quest to provide the latest news and greatest technologies to soon be invisibly woven into our daily lives. You will learn of new appliances for networking the home, automated patient-monitoring devices, distributed microsensing, wireless network standards, autonomous robots, even smart paint! We hope you find these reports as fascinating as you do informative.

Ben Shneiderman takes a step back from our embedded future to discuss "universal access," a term often used to describe the Net’s ultimate goal. As he rightly attests, there are still many technical and cultural obstacles to overcome, particularly in terms of interfaces and usability. In other news, Baron, Shaw, and Bailey contend Web-based e-catalogs may be just the windows to success in the B2B world of e-commerce. Cline and Girou examine the elements for building and implementing adaptable applications by identifying enduring business themes. And Kessler and Williams offer a unique discussion of the benefits of pair programming by employing a popular inspirational essay to trace similar life lessons.

Hal Berghel roams the "Digital Village" to warn us of who gets hurt when the middleman is cut out of the e-commerce picture. In "Viewpoint," the ever-intrepid Steve Mann looks back to the future of personal cybernetics and the dissolving boundaries between user and machine. And Susan Landau offers her expert assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the five finalists in the race to create the Advanced Encryption Standard in this month’s "Technical Opinion."

Finally, this issue marks the farewell appearances of two noted Communications columnists. Barbara Simons ends her reign as ACM President with a column pondering the ongoing intellectual property battles over DVD protections. Larry Press, the spirit behind our "Personal Computing" column for over a decade, focuses his final entry on the current state of technologies for e-books—a field slow to develop and even slower to deliver. We thank them both for their devotion to this magazine and their determination to share poignant observations and experiences with its readers.

Diane Crawford, Editor

COMING NEXT MONTH: A special section on system integration, particularly its role in e-commerce, health care, data warehousing, and digital libraries. Also, articles on telemedicine, Internet marketing, multimedia distribution, and wireless networking issues.