Technology Futures

The IPSO Alliance (IP for Smart Objects) is mapping the future of appliances and gadgets. Many common household and industrial items will have an IP address in the near future, enabling them to connect to the Internet and perform functions like system diagnostics, power management, transmission of environmental information (temperature, light, motion, health status), and software upgrades.

Telehealth applications will benefit from the new functions enabled by IP connectivity. As robust and reliable broadband connections to the home become more common, more older citizens will be able to enjoy a higher quality of life and will be able to live independently much longer because of relatively low cost telehealth diagnostic and monitoring devices in the home.

In-home and industrial power management and control will save homeowners and businesses lots of money because power hungry devices like water heaters, furnaces, heat pumps, air conditioners, and dryers will be able to talk to the electric and gas utilities, which in turn will be able to turn those devices on and off (with the permission of the owner) to help smooth demand for energy.

What is the essential ingredient? Residences and businesses have to high reliability broadband connections--fiber everywhere.

Zap electric cars will be built in Kentucky. They have been built in China, but the cost of hauling them from China has become too expensive. So manufacturing is moving closer to customers, and the Energy Economy is going to unfold much like this--getting energy and energy saving devices as close to customers as possible.

3M may finally be the first to market with a real pocket projector. Numerous companies have pre-announced these gadgets for several years, but the sticky note company may grab an early jump in this emerging market space with their $359 device.

It does not have the light power to provide a good image for a large room full of people, but for desktop use, impromptu small group presentations, and even cheapo home theater use, it is likely to be very popular.

Slate has an article about a phenomenon that network administrators have known for many years: a handful of Internet users gobble up a huge portion of bandwidth. Five percent of users typically consume 50% of a service provider's total capacity.

This may sound like bad news, but after toying for years with really poorly thought out policies like just cutting users off without notice, some of the providers are beginning to implement bandwidth pricing changes. For a basic DSL or cable modem subscription, you get so many gigabits per month. If you use more than that, they turn the meter on and start charging you by the gigabit used.

This is the first step towards a more rational approach to charging for network use. Instead of punishing their best customers (the old policy), the service providers are finally implementing price policies that communicate the real cost of bandwidth to users. So users can have all the bits they want, but they have to pay for them.

Eventually, most networks will move away from this model and towards a service oriented model, which is already happening in places like Danville, Virginia and the Blue Ridge Crossroads area of southwest Virginia. Businesses and residential users are really only interested in services, and forcing them to calculate how many bits a phone call or a YouTube video will use up is an inconvenience. What would work better is simply placing a price on the service, rather than on the bits used by that service. This is already beginning to happen with things like VoIP phone service, and as IP TV availability increases, charging by the bit will gradually disappear. For now, it is a step in the right direction.