Thomas Zimmerman, a researcher at IBM Almaden Research Center and frequent MAKE contributor, has issued a call for papers for an upcoming issue of IEEE Pervasive Computing that makers should be interested in.

The traditional sense of the word “hacking” implies modifying existing systems and devices (including hardware and software) to improve performance, enable new functions, or even create radically new applications. Hackers see commercial products and hardware/software modules as inspiration and raw material to be repurposed and reassembled, leveraging the development and cost efficiencies of mass production. Because the technical barriers can be low (although the ingenuity bar remains high), hacking is a widespread phenomenon, occurring in garages as well as university and corporate laboratories. Case studies indicate that hackers (formally called “lead users”) generally operate outside of the companies that produce the original devices, yet make massive contributions to new product innovation.

In this issue, we wish to highlight the role of lead users in pervasive computing, and illuminate how the art and practice of such system “mash-ups” impact our field. We seek to explore what motivates hackers in the pervasive computing arena, to identify the tools and techniques that allow one to reverse engineer, modify, and to interface existing hardware and/or software, as well as showcasing examples of the new systems that are created. As the technical span of pervasive computing can be broad (including wireless systems, sensor nodes, handhelds, wearables, HCI, displays and actuators, installation, and game environments), many different genres under which sophisticated hackers operate can be relevant.

(David Pescovitz profiled Tom in MAKE Vol 4.)

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