Missing the wave? Scattershot funding has its costs

Funding initiatives often drive large-scale research agendas in both academia and industry. In many instances, these initiatives arise from projects led by a few individuals who articulate a compelling vision of the future. In our fields, the late 1980s and early '90s provided several such visions and demonstrations. Mark Weiser at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) coined the term ubiquitous computing in 1988 and is often credited with the vision that we still hold today. Focused initiatives often gather a community of researchers and industry people who normally might not communicate as readily. This community helps set the research agenda for the field and set the standards by which results can be accessed. It defines benchmarks and produces common resources such as hardware and software infrastructure and reference databases that can help transition the technology to industrial partners. Scattershot funding can lead to research being applied to many different areas without the research's own internal discipline.