Before examining the challenges to creating a smart space in an office, discussion of what constitutes a smart space is worthwhile.
In our vision, every device such as a display, a mouse, a keyboard or a disk drive, contains its own embedded processor and is wireless capable. In such a world, assembling a computing environment should be a matter of placing the necessary parts within wireless signaling distance of each other. Integration of the devices into a computing environment should be transparent to the user.
In an office environment, there is also a premium on minimizing the work necessary to achieve a result. For instance, we believe that assembling a computing environment in an office is a matter of collecting the devices necessary to perform the current task and we should seek to minimize the number of devices necessary to achieve any one task. For instance, in our view, displaying a file (to be read, or projected in front of an audience) should require the presence of just a display device, a storage device containing the file, and some interface (perhaps a button already on the display device) to enable scrolling forward and backwards in the document. In a wilder example, a confident touch typist should be able to edit a file if she has access to a keyboard and the disk the file is on.