Press Release

The Design Challenge of Pervasive Interface

John Thackara to speak at ACM Interface Conference in The Hague

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- What happens to society when there are hundreds of microchips for every man, woman and child on the planet? When every object around us is 'smart', and connected, what are cultural consequences? And what about our state of mind as we step into the garden to look at the flowers - and the flowers look at you?

These controversial questions are the focus of a keynote speech by John Thackara at CHI 2000, the worldwide gathering of Human-Computer Interaction experts, in The Hague on Tuesday 4 April.

John Thackara is director of Doors of Perception, the conference and knowledge network that looks at design strategies for the internet.

CHI is the premier worldwide forum for the exchange of information on all aspects of how people interact with computers. The annual conference on human factors in computing systems features a full program of presentations, tutorials and vendor exhibits. Researchers, practitioners, educators, and students from around the world join in exploring and creating the future of computer-human interaction. Approximately 2200 professionals from over 35 countries will examine the future of human-computer interaction from 1-6 April at the Nederlands Congress Centre in The Hague, The Netherlands.

CHI conferences are sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM)'s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI). In addition to ACM, various organizations in the technology industry support the CHI conference. The CHI 2000 champion sponsors include: Diamond Bullet, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, Unisys and Yahoo! Inc.

For more information, contact the CHI 2000 Conference Office at +1 410 263 5382 or send e-mail to chi2000-office@acm.org.