[3] Research on ambient devices began at Xerox Parc, with a paper co-written by Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown, entitled Calm Computing.The original developers of the idea[citation needed] state that an ambient device is designed to provide support to people carrying out everyday activities.[citation needed] The key issue lies with taking Internet-based content (e.g. traffic congestion, weather condition, stock market quotes) and mapping it into a single, usually one-dimensional spectrum (e.g. angle, colour).The concept of ambient devices can be traced back to the early 2000s, when preliminary research was carried at Xerox PARC, according to the company’s official website.[7] More recent products such as Amazon Alexa can be seen as adopting the spirit of ambient devices, in that they operate in the background, responding to both users and external data sources.