The following is from an article in the Economist.
“This year around 10 billion microprocessors will be sold,embedded in anything from computers to coffee-makers.The vast majority of them will be able to ‘think’ but not ‘talk’:they will perform specific tasks but cannot communicate.But this is now starting to change.The cost,size and power requirements of wireless functions are falling rapidly,so some unlikely candidates are now being connected to networks.For example,bridges and buildings are being monitored for structural integrity by small sensors.Farmland is being watched and irrigation systems are being switched on and off remotely.In years to come, wireless communications will increasingly become part of the fabric of everyday life.David Clark,a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who helped develop the internet,believes that in 15 or 20 years’ time the network will need to accommodate a trillion devices,most of them wireless.To illustrate what that world might be like,Robert Poor,the co-founder of two wireless companies,Adozu and Ember,uses a modest example:light fixtures in buildings.If every one of them contained a small wireless node,people would not only be able to control the lighting more effectively but put them to many other uses too.If the nodes were programmed to serve as online smoke detectors,they could signal a fire as well as show its location.They could also act as a security system or provide internet connectivity to other things in the building.Such applications are already being developed.For instance,Philips,an electronics firm, plans to introduce wirelessly controlled lighting systems for commercial buildings in around five years’ time.And its researchers are working on making networked light fittings capable of monitoring the objects throughout a building,tracking equipment in hospitals or preventing theft in offices”.
(via New Mobilities)
