The widespread deployment of technologies like mobile phones continues to drive new applications and to open research opportunities. This article talks about ubiquitous computing and how people understand and interact with computing. Pervasive computing technologies are transparent to users until the system malfunctions. Minor breakdowns are common, and people get used to them. However, when breakdowns affect ubiquitous systems that have evolved into megautilities, like mobile communication and data networks, we realize just how dependent we have become on the technology.