Small Scopes

Technology, Telescopes and Everything

"Regular old dumb stuff is getting smart and connected.

You can buy a backyard telescope loaded with global positioning satellite (GPS) technology so it can point out which stars you're viewing. At one university, each parking meter has a chip and antenna so you can call it with your cell phone and buy more time.

And then there are the touch-screen sewing machines that can download images to embroider, gas station pumps that run Microsoft Windows, and shipping crates that can call their owners for help if they're lost.

A lot of technology companies focus on making computers more powerful and Internet connections faster. But a major trend is pushing in another direction - toward getting cheap computer chips and limited networking capabilities into products that never used to have such technology. It lets companies turn commodity products into premium products that cost more and stand out in the marketplace.

The trend is analogous to the electrification of products 100 years ago, when inventors found ways to use that technology to change everyday items. Hand-turned drills became power drills. Ice boxes became refrigerators. The same thing is happening now, but with computer chips and tiny radio transmitters.

And there's a fascinating twist this time: When you add information and communications to a product, it doesn't just improve that product - it allows that product to become part of a network. Which means those products can talk to other products, or to Web sites, or to you through your cell phone or PC - creating layer upon layer of new possibilities.

"It opens up innovation to all new things no one ever thought of," says Irving Wladawsky-Berger, in charge of IBM's technical strategy.

"There's an interesting pattern now - everything is an accessory to everything else," notes Mick McManus, CEO of Maya Design.

The parking meters, for instance, are at the University of California, Santa Barbara. IBM devised the system and will try to sell it to other campuses and cities. In the near future, a "smart," networked parking meter might be able to talk to all the other parking meters in the neighborhood and feed that information to a Web site. That way, as you drive to an area looking for a place to park, your cell phone could tap the parking Web site and display a map showing open spaces.

Such a level of integration isn't here yet.

Still, the movement toward smart stuff keeps picking up steam. Companies are moving in that direction. A survey by research firm Aberdeen Group found that more than half of executives plan to pump more money into radio frequency identification (RFID) projects in the next 12 to 24 months."

posted by Tako John @ 6:22 PM