Ambient Programming for Everyday Interactions

Our everyday experience is filled with a large variety of electronics that require customization and programming but are notoriously difficult and annoying to deal with: toys, alarm clocks, DVD players, televisions, microwave ovens, laundry machines, etc. They typically present us with inscrutable one- or two-button interfaces, and more often than not, frustrate us as we try to change some aspect of their functionality. As more objects in our daily lives { even clothing - become computational, there is a need to seriously consider how to improve the interaction, how we may sensibly program all these different types of devices, before we create another generation of computational artifacts that are also difficult to manage. In other words, this is an opportunity to get it right this time, since we have gotten it so horribly wrong in the past.