***Call for Journal Papers: Special Issue of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Springer Bridging Digital Divides through Mobile and Ubiquitous technology: Experiences and Perspectives Editors Matt Jones, Swansea University, UK Gary Marsden, University of Cape Town, South Africa Lucia Terrenghi, Vodafone GROUP Services R&D, Germany Synopsis Ubicomp – everywhere, everybody technology and systems. But are we really fully exploring inclusive visions? Is the full potential of mobile and ubicomp technology for everyone or only the relatively affluent? The research community's work to date has been focused on the so-called 'developed' world – contexts where there are already well-established technical infrastructures and digital resources. These contexts have users who are relatively highly computer literate, typically have high degrees of textual literacy and have undergone a formal education. Examples include sophisticated 'smart' homes with digital noticeboards and even interactive fridge doors (Taylor et al, 2007); embedded technologies for amusement parks (Schnädelbach et al, 2008); and, cities and urban dwellers with time to, "marvel at mundane everyday experiences and objects that evoke mystery, doubt, and uncertainty. How many newspapers has that person sold today? When was that bus last repaired? How far have I walked today? How many people have ever sat on that bench? Does that woman own a cat? Did a child or adult spit that gum onto the sidewalk?" (Paulos & Beckmann 2006). This Special Issue is about the billions of people who do not fit these sorts of context. There are hundreds of millions of users, and billions to come in the next 5 years, in places like India, China and Africa, whose first, and perhaps only, experience of computing will be in the form of mobile and other ubicomp technologies. Many of these users will never live in the sorts of home, or work in the types of office, or daydream in the parks, or take a day-off for the sorts of amusement park envisaged by earlier research. But it is not just 'developing' countries. What about the marginalised in our 'developed' world – the urban poor, the ill-educated, the homeless, the computer non-literate; i.e. those without access to what many of us take as essential digital infrastructure? We invite contributions considering these contexts too. Topics which are relevant for this issue include, although are not limited to: -elicitation of requirements in these new, challenging contexts (methodologies, results…) -case-study descriptions of projects aiming at bridging digital divides: we want to learn about successes, failures and lessons learned -mobile and ubicomp guidelines and/or manifestos for marginalised communities (e.g., rural areas, developing countries, elderly people, disabled people) -interface and interaction issues -devices and infrastructure -examples of appropriation of a mobile or ubicomp technology in a community previously unconnected -examples/ideas about how to sensitize social responsibility in the networked society (e.g., recycling hardware, stimulating social networks…) Submission details Submissions should be between 4000 and 6000 words and authors are encouraged to use the Springer guidelines for authors, available at ftp://ftp.springer.de/pub/Word/journals. Submission in pdf electronic format should be emailed to gaz@acm.org Important dates 12th March: deadline for full paper submission 31st May: notification from reviewers 2nd July: Submission of final papers December: Final publication of special edition Reviewing Committee: Russell Beale, University of Birmingham Jan Blom, Nokia Research, Bangalore Stephen Brewster, Glasgow University Abigail Sellen, Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK Andy Dearden, Sheffield Hallam University, UK Ann Light, Sheffield Hallam University, UK Anxo Cereijo-Roibas, Vodafone GROUP Services, UK Derrick L. Cogburn, Syracuse University, USA Edwin Blake, University of Cape Town, South Africa Eli Blevis, University of Indiana, USA Ingrid Mulder, TU DElft. Keith Cheverst, Lancaster University, UK Mike Best, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA Nic Bidwell, James Cook University, Australia Pan Hui, Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, Germany Jussi Impio, Nokia Research Africa Tim Kindberg, Matter 2 Media Amit A Nanavati, IBM Research, New Delhi Yvonne Rogers, Open University, UK. Kentaro Toyama, Microsoft Research, India Jonathan Donner, Microsoft Research Matthew Kam, CMU Susan Dray, Dray & Associates Sriram Subramanian, University of Bristol References Paulos, E. and Beckmann, C. 2006. Sashay: designing for wonderment. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Montréal, Québec, Canada, April 22 - 27, 2006). R. Grinter, T. Rodden, P. Aoki, E. Cutrell, R. Jeffries, and G. Olson, Eds. CHI '06. ACM, New York, NY, 881- 884. Schnädelbach, H., Rennick Egglestone, S., Reeves, S., Benford, S., Walker, B., and Wright, M. 2008. Performing thrill: designing telemetry systems and spectator interfaces for amusement rides. In Proceeding of the Twenty-Sixth Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Florence, Italy, April 05 - 10, 2008). CHI '08. ACM, New York, NY, 1167-1176. Taylor, A. S., Harper, R., Swan, L., Izadi, S., Sellen, A., and Perry, M. 2007. Homes that make us smart. Personal Ubiquitous Comput. 11, 5 (Jun. 2007), 383-393.