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Name: Rodney Edwards
From: Kentucky
Bio: Network Technician
Area of Expertise: Technology Developer/Administrator
Topic: Community/Culture
Headline: Everything is networkable and the network is Everywhere.
Nutshell: Appliances, TV's, Radios, Security Systems, GPS and other cool toys in cars, telephones, water meters, and technology that we haven't thought of yet will all be networked together with providers, companies, and other people.
Vision:Imagine your at home watching CNN and a story scrolls across the bottom of the screen, but thy are talking about something like the peterson trial. You click on the scrolling item and boom there’s something your interested in.
Sure that don’t seem that advanced, because it’s not, but in order to do that they need to pump your TV signal through the internet to your house. Why stop with the TV? We have a HUGEMOUGOUS network in this world and it is growing bigger and faster every day. We are already seeing phone systems use the Internet for communication.
How long before we see TV’s, and radios connect to the Internet Wired, or Wireless and get the same station at the same address all the time anywhere in the world? XM is good, but this would be much better, and there would be no limit to the number of stations you could listen to. Open Windows Media Player now and just browse through the radio stations. It’s pretty awesome, just not fast enough or broad enough yet.
Now imagine all appliances in your house are also connected to this network. Th refrigerator, and cabinets could keep a running inventory and warn you when you are running low on something. Maybe you would pick a dish from your electronic cookbook and it would take into account what you had in your inventory and give you a list of what you needed to purchase. It would know how long you have had a certain item and could prompt you to throw it out, or prompt you to use it before the expiration.
Businesses can have similar inventories that are connected directly to their vendors and some customers. When customers have needs, vendors send to the business and the business has what the customer needs before the customer even knows.
The possibilities are endless, but the vision is: We are right in the middle of a growing complex network that spans this entire world, and will soon be in every home and business in most countries.
I think we will see normal appliances and devices coming out "Network Ready," then software will be developed, and online service providers will arise. There will be devices made that integrate with things that aren’t even electronic so that they can be monitored, or managed more efficiently.
The world is a changing place. Let’s hop on and ride it for our lifetime.
Date Submitted: November 11, 2004
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