The original vision of Ubiquitous Computing (also called Pervasive Computing) first envisaged by Mark Weiser in the late 1980s, presented a powerful shift in computation, where people live, work, and play in a seamless digital environment that is interleaved into the physical world, instead of existing as interactive digital environments merely operating in a few hotspots. Ubiquitous computing is now mainstream, as humans we are accompanied by mobile computing devices (smart devices), and a physical computing and communication infrastructure (smart environments), which interact with us but also directly with other devices or machines (smart interactions). In order to do this, the early form factors of digital devices changed from being larger room and cabinet sized digital devices, into the form factors proposed by Weiser of Smart Tabs (e.g., wearables, smart cards), Pads (e.g., mobile phones, tablets), and Boards. In addition, rather than using explicit input keyboard and pointer device interfaces that shift the locus of focus of interaction to the input interface and require a substantial human cognition, an invisible computing model that uses more intuitive and natural interaction was proposed. More recently, three more form factors have been proposed for ubiquitous devices, Smart Skins (e.g., fabrics, surfaces), Dust (micro electro-mechanical systems that may be embedded in larger devices), and Clay (3D print any shape and embed smart tabs and dust in these or combine multiple dust devices into larger ones). In addition, these ubiquitous devices increasingly tend to be networked as part of an Internet of Things. This Special Issue seeks submissions offering research results and experimental solutions that advance the state of the art of these six forms of ubiquitous computing devices for both participatory and opportunistic interaction that are concerned with (but not limited to) the following topics:

We invite interested authors to submit abstracts or expressions of interest to editors by 30 May 2016: at the end of summary.

Dr. Stefan Poslad
Dr. Patricia Charlton
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Informatics is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• 3D printed smart objects and smart clay
• Context-awareness, including spatial-awareness and personalisation
• Implicit Human Computer Interaction
• Internet of Things
• Intelligent Environments
• Instrumented Self and Ambient Assisted Living
• Management including privacy, sustainability, security
• Mediated reality
• MEMS
• Mobile devices and transport
• Multi-person, multi-player, large object and virtual object interaction
• Participatory and oppportunistic sensing, tagging and actuators
• Semantic interaction and M2M interopaability
• Smart fabrics and surfaces
• User Interfaces that are disruptive, including tangible, organic and polymer interfaces.
• Wearables