Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

I recall reading an article about 10 years ago describing a PARC research project in which networked computers with antennae were placed throughout a set of rooms, and the subject carried a small transmitter with them from room to room. As the computer in each room detected the transmitter, it triggered actions in each room. I think it was called "ambient computing."

Does this ring a bell for you? I have searched for this article recently and not been able to find it again.

Yes, this idea was originally Nicholas Negroponte's in the 70s. The Parc version was called "Ubiquitous Computing" and was led by Mark Wieser in the 80s ...

Thanks! This research was my first thought when I saw big companies starting to come out with things like smart watches, hyper-local beacons, and home automation products.

But strangely, it seems like companies are still treating those all as separate lines. For example, Apple markets their home and watch projects totally independently of one another. But I have to think that they are working toward ubiquitous computing, much as they worked toward the Dynabook over the decades.