It Started With Pictures
A discussion of information must begin with the Internet, the phenomenon that has changed everything. Oddly, though, the Internet wouldn't have been possible without the efforts of our cave-dwelling ancestors. By learning to draw and communicate effectively via pictures, they set in motion a chain of evolutionary events that would shape and mold our brains. Look at the way the phrase, "A picture is worth a thousand words," takes on greater meaning as time goes by.
The Internet would never have made the strides it has if we were still typing plain text. In fact, wasn't it adult-entertainment interests that became one of the first monetary supporters of the web? Thanks to those dollars, the Internet took hold and flourished. Otherwise, it might have languished in military and academic circles.
E-mail and voice will remain at the core of our everyday communication, but they won't drive future technological innovation. It will be the conversion and transportation of high-resolution color images and video. We'll need digital video in mobile receivers, travelling in a car at 70 mph, with zero multipath distortion in built-up areas. We'll also need bandwidth for video conferencing and web casting at the drop of a hat, including high-resolution medical images.
Business is only part of it. Carriers are aiming their digital subscriber line (DSL), cable, fiber-optic, and wireless pathways right at our homes. The public switched telephone network (PSTN) won't know what hit it as it gets shoved to the sidelines by the data-intensive media knocking on our doors.
All of this can't just mean the ability to quickly download cool graphics, the latest MP3 audio file, or talk for free over iffy Internet Protocol (IP) lines. What do the carriers see in our future? What are they banking billions on as they trip over each other to get into our homes?
Yes, e-commerce is a large chunk of it. Video is there, as is audio, news, and all the paraphernalia of the modern environment. From my point of view, what's going to make it really big is universal connectivity—joining the dots. These will be the mantras of the next decade—from our thoughts to their medium, and everything in between. Wireless is where it's at, even though it will be some time before a wireless connection can compete with wireline on a performance/cost basis. Still, the convenience of an untethered connection will push many to take the cost hit as it unfolds.
It must be that built-in urge to both control our environment and to walk freely within it that has us in its grasp. We struggle to elongate our fingers by way of invisible, wireless tentacles that wrap around TVs, VCRs, wireless phones, cookers, and every other electronic and mechanical device with which we surround ourselves.
That urge, combined with a need to communicate with the outside world easily and rapidly from the comfort of our home or office, has led us to where we stand today. It will take us into the near future with a myriad of tools that are limited only by our imagination. There will be everything from connected refrigerators to handheld personal digital assistants with neural processors that "learn" about us and our habits as we use them. So what are the technologies, both wireline and wireless, that will hone these tools to the level we need to take us there?
Any examination of the varying routes to communications nirvana has to begin with the cutting edge of development: the wireless, short-range, personal-communications device. This spring will source the vast majority of information flowing into the ethereal communications cloud. Connected to everything from blood-pressure monitors to voice communicators and your toaster and refrigerator, these devices will be our personal, always-on connection to the Net.
Leading the charge into the next millennium are those devices conforming to the Bluetooth standard. Long overdue, these devices will hit the ground running as early as next month. But this will only be the beginning.
Impediments to the proliferation of Bluetooth essentially revolve around cost. With improved transmitter and receiver architectures, shrinking processor cores, and the combination of direct-conversion techniques with more sophisticated packaging, the overall cost of these devices will drop from about $20 initially to under $5 in 12 to 18 months. Then hold onto your hats, because it's going to rapidly turn into a maelstrom.
With applications outside the home ranging from corporate LANs to airports and hotel lobbies, network access using Bluetooth devices will be everywhere, tracking everything you do. Some thorny privacy issues may crop up, such as employers monitoring every move that we make within a building—ostensibly to improve communication and security. A person will be quickly located and incoming calls automatically routed to the nearest available phone. But any log kept of a person's movements could eventually be used against them.
Ironically, Bluetooth's modulation scheme—frequency-hopping spread spectrum—was chosen for its robustness and security aspects. Yes, getting information from A to B is important, but I'm more fearful of what's done with the data once it reaches its destination. Information is the currency of the new century. A proliferation of information-gathering and transmitting devices will be monitoring you, and you'll be a willing participant, eager to forsake privacy for convenience.
The convergence of the above-mentioned technological parameters with advanced CMOS processing will quickly allow low-cost Bluetooth connectivity. Operation will hit rates well above the first iteration's 1 Mbit/s.
Until wireless RF solutions reach critical mass, however, IrDA-compatible infrared devices will flourish in line-of-sight or in-room applications. These devices already enjoy the benefits of a bill of materials that's under $5. Though incapable of through-wall communication, IrDA-compliant devices will remain popular. As Bluetooth ramps up, they will leverage off their cost, relative security, and simplicity as a medium.
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