Watch carefully: Now you see them; now you dont. If some of the nations leading computer scientists are correct, personal computers are about to become invisible. No, theyre not actually going away -- quite the contrary -- but computers will become less obtrusive as they become simpler and more natural to use. In many cases, computers literally will become invisible, being hidden within pens, shoes, wallets, refrigerators and other common objects, where theyll operate on our behalf, often without any conscious intervention on our part.

A computer-in-a-pen might send copies of your handwritten notes or letters to your desktop PC without you having to synch-up the two devices. A computer-in-a-shoe might track your aerobic activity or emotional state based on your speed, gait, body temperature and galvanic skin response. And future computer displays might be printed as a part of the wallpaper covering the walls in your home or office, activated by a minor electrical charge so that the displays are visible only when needed, disappearing when not in use.

Such invisibility is a far cry from todays trend in consumer computing, in which PCs take on stylish designs and colors that call more, not less, attention to themselves. But it may not be so far-fetched, or very far away, according to Dr. Turner Whitted of Microsoft Research and Prof. Gaetano Borriello of the University of Washingtons Department of Computer Science and Engineering. On behalf of their respective institutions, these two scientists are co-chairing the "University of Washington/Microsoft Research Summer Institute: Technologies of Invisible Computing," to be held July 19-23 in Seattle.

"The individuals coming to the Institute rarely, if ever, meet in the usual, discipline-oriented forums," notes Borriello, a veteran researcher from Xerox and Berkeley who is now participating in the University of Washingtons prestigious research for DARPA, the government agency that helped create the Internet. "Its our hope that this unique collection of people in an interdisciplinary forum will provide innovative insights into the real-world problems encountered in the design of new ubiquitous and invisible products."