Distributed and Mobile Computing
Douglas M. Johnston, Michael Frank Goodchild, David Maguire, Valerian T. Noronha · 2004
Technology is moving rapidly to the point where computing will be available everywhere, will be fully mobile, and will provide access to widely distributed resources.This trend to itinerant, distributed, and ubiquitous computing is the latest in a long series of major architectural changes, with associated implications for where computing is performed.Production of geographic data is similarly moving to a new set of arrangements focused on local agencies and individuals.These changes are placed within an economic framework, as a basis for development of a new set of theoretical principles regarding the location of computing, and its implications for geographic information science.Digital libraries are a further instance of these trends, with associated implications for the spatial organization of libraries.The chapter ends by identifying a series of research issues, and the benefits that can be anticipated if these issues are solved.