Mark Weiser and John Brown of Xerox PARC wrote this article in October 1996 about a new approach to technology they dub “calm technology”.
The article starts off with an introduction to the four phases of computing: mainframe, PC, internet/distributed, and ubiquitous computing (UC). If you’re not familiar, UC is the idea that computers will become so prevalent, they will disappear into the background just like electricity has. The authors summarize it like this: The UC era will have lots of computers sharing us.
But the interesting parts are their ideas on “calm technology” and their ideas on periphery and center: