Past, Present and Future of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments

We are gradually making a transition to a new era where computers become truly intertwined with our daily lives. Up to not so long ago, we were able to know clearly where computers were and in which way they affected our lives. This has been gradually blurred and now computing devices of various types are all around us, embedded in different objects we interact with and in that way they influence our lives. There are indications that this trend is irreversible and that computing and society will now interact with each other in far richer ways than before, to the point that computing will become transparent to humans and still intrinsically involved in our daily living. This paper provides a brief overview of the evolution of these fields, describes some of the current developments, and points at some of the immediate challenges that researchers in these area face.