The BBC recently ran an story about how Italians are using mobile phones to comparatively shop for food at open air markets. Essentially, you send a SMS message querying the lowest price for some item. Armed with that information, you can haggle the price of fruit and vegetables from a better position.
Ubicomp has been an interest of mine for years now, and this is kind of why. It’s simple. It’s beyond, simple, it’s mundane. It’s something that aids people in doing something they already do, in a straight forward manner. More importantly, it demonstrably makes people’s lives just a tiny bit better.