The Orb, 23 Years Later
Back in the fall of 1981 several of us college students shared a sparsely furnished off-campus house. The primary decoration in the living was The Orb. I can't remember where or how we obtained it, and I don't know what happened to it. The Orb was a big, round, orange lamp. But more importantly, this was The Orb.

Flash forward to the contributions of Mark Weiser (R.I.P.) and his early concepts about ubiquitous computing:

Ubiquitous computing names the third wave in computing, just now beginning. First were mainframes, each shared by lots of people. Now we are in the personal computing era, person and machine staring uneasily at each other across the desktop. Next comes ubiquitous computing, or the age of calm technology, when technology recedes into the background of our lives. Alan Kay of Apple calls this "Third Paradigm" computing.

Eventually, Ambient Devices emerges with a desire to offer commercial devices that use calm technology. One of their first devices? The Orb. Actually, it's the Ambient Orb - and it's not your father's monocolor orange device:

Frosted glass orb glows a color to indicate your information.

The Ambient Orb slowly transitions between thousands of colors to show changes in the weather, the health of your stock portfolio, or if your boss or kid is on instant messenger.

Imagine if you had to go to your computer and type in your zip code whenever you wanted to check what time it was. Your important information should be as accessible as looking at a clock, now the Ambient Orb can make a variety of information just a glance away.

The Orb will arrive automatically set to track the Dow Jones Industrial Average, glowing more green or red to indicate market movement up or down, or yellow when the market is calm. It can be customized to a set of free channels, such as market indices or weather in major cities. Optionally, you can upgrade to access more premium channels, such as your customized portfolio.

Well, our off-campus house also had a "table" made up of half a ping pong court resting on some bricks. What can Xerox PARC do with that?