Computers are becoming more and more ubiquitous, moving from the desktop into
infrastructures of our everyday life. The use of mobile technology and wireless communication has become a commodity. "Smart" technologies and ambient intelligence are going to augment
and influence the way we interact with our personal environment – the (physical) entities that we
operate upon in order to achieve our daily goals. Smart appliances and instrumented
environments provide electronic assistance for scenarios and situations, where computer
support has not yet been available. IT-enabled artifacts are increasingly context-sensitive,
cooperative and pro-active; our everyday environment is becoming „alive“ with an unobtrusive
background fabric of communicating and assisting multimedia appliances. IMC2009 is going to
explore the design space of innovative approaches and technical visions for future assistive systems.