This summer issue of IEEE Pervasive Computing is especially focused on hacking and its role in the field of pervasive/ubiquitous computing. As Roy Want, puts it into his editorial introduction, hacking can play a powerful role in pervasive computing as it can inspire "thought processes and reduce the time it takes to create a viable prototype. This process can take many forms: taking a device that performs one function and tweaking it so that it makes another, gathering unrelated components and commercial products to be repurposed or rapid prototyping. In their introduction, the guest editors also highlight how "The advent of the Web along with the rise of open source communities have brought a resurgence in hacking" along with a good bunch of websites about this topic.

The issue covers examples about the Nintendo Wii, Chumby, bluetooth in cell phones among other things, as well as a more theoretical description of how hacking is valuable for user innovation by Eric von Hippel and Joseph A. Paradiso. In this paper, they show how the hacker is a “lead user” who reinvents and modifies products to better achieve his or her own needs.

Why do I blog this? simply looking at how the recent evolution of object hacking scene pervades the academic/engineering field.