The Internet could soon set the world buzzing with a network of sensors designed to track our environment as well as our personal health, consumption of goods, and living patterns.
We are used to standalone sensors such as gas and electric meters and smoke detectors in our homes. For decades, we have used sensors in closed systems like our cars to track speed and control temperature.
What is changing is that sensors are becoming cheaper, smaller, and more energy-efficient. As a result, their use is growing exponentially. Companies, governments, and individuals are embedding them everywhere. For example: Motion detectors now switch on lights, turn on water, and dispense towels.
And these sensors are talking. Many are still not directly connected to the Internet, but that is changing fast. With the spread of IPv6, many of these sensors will have their own Internet addresses and in the future will be talking to each other with implications for online “noise” and traffic.
Sensor technology itself is evolving rapidly, and sensors are increasingly generating massive amounts of data on us and our world. Advertisers are using data mining for predicting your behaviors and buying patterns. A sensor necklace can now record the exact time and date when an elderly adult swallows specially designed pills; it also can send the data to the doctor, or remind the patient if they forget the medication. Soon, products in your refrigerator will report their freshness and amount, and reorder themselves when needed. The Transportation Security Administration plans further use of technology to detect anomalies in passenger behavior patterns to find potential terrorists.
The Air Force is installing mobile, battery-powered tags that use GPS and a WiFi system to monitor the location and status of aging aircraft and parts in a 110 million-square-foot outdoor boneyard in Arizona. Auburn University engineers are-creating self-organizing networks for DARPA that can be deployed incrementally and assemble themselves. Berkeley scientists are creating “smart dust” with autonomous sensing and communication.
As this network of sensors becomes more ubiquitous and sophisticated, it will be used to record an increasingly detailed set of patterns for each of us. Together the patterns will give researchers insights into the behaviors of complex, open systems.
Integrating the vast data from proliferating sensors, making sense of complex changes, and making better decisions with this new visibility offers important opportunities to companies and governments. Indeed, more wealth and benefit will come from integrating the data than from the sensors themselves.
What do ubiquitous sensors portend? Many imagine that sensors will enable a telemedicine system customized for you. Your health care professionals will know how you are doing from afar and be able to call on experts when your readings are out of tolerance. Many imagine that transportation and shipping systems will be even more transparent, with flows adjusted based on real-time patterns. Expect advertising systems with ads tailored to your previous patterns and offered to your mobile device as you approach a retail provider.
Yes, living in an instrumented world will force us to trade some anonymity for transparency. At the same time, the vast proliferation of sensors and their networks promise organizations and individuals better choices and efficiencies.
— Joseph A. (Jae) Engelbrecht, Jr. is a principal with Toffler Associates
Kim's observation that the sensored Internet is likely to develop faster than we expect seems right. But I suspect the rates of changes that technologies (sensors, connectivity, and understanding the data) will be deployed in different systems will be uneven. Will it be faster in safety/security systems, environmental monitoring, or health care?
If accurate, monitoring or managing the privacy and security concerns that Abdlah notes will be a challenge. Maybe that is natural. Our attitudes of privacy and security are in flux, and perhaps policies should differ in different domains.
Jason's assistant seems quite plausible. Many of us could use some help.
I can see it... a mail filtering system that not only learns your junk, but also your style, likes, dislikes (probably sourced from Google) and then responds accordingly. A little scary...
That Note is just interesting! what if each person's personal assistant was customized, in all kinds of funny creative language....it would be nearly as interesting as reading a blog when everyone's assistant responds! but maybe not for long.
True that the time for such sensor gadgets is here and no matter how much we run they will soon catch up with us, yet the fear of the unknown will always be the first to welcome drastically new technologies.
Sorry, but this whole idea totally gives me the willies. While on one hand it'd be great to have automated sensors to, say, monitor pollution levels in a lake and report on an sudden increase, when it comes to other applications this is downright creepy!
Mrs. Jones' sensors say she's nervous, relay that to her implanted Valium injector! Geekess just ordered one too many books on - put her on the Watchlist! The bell peppers just reported that the onions are taking over the fridge! Would we have to have sensors to sense when our sensors can't sense anymore??? And what if we didn't! We'd be relying on faulty data... Yeesh.
Hopefully all of this will come with an Opt-out capability!
I love this topic because it's something that can be done right now and that helps pretty much everyone out there.
I disagree that we shouldn't go for this technology because it further develops the depedency we have with the internet. We can't limit ourselves because of that.
I remember an article a couple of months ago about mining the wisdom of the crowd and using sensors to measure temperature or even pollution.
NOTE:This message is being sent on behalf of Jason by EnvironComp2009, a prototype sensored-system designed to assist Jason in all his activities. This reply is being sent in anticipation of Jason's interest in this topic. Sensors are currently showing that Jason is sleepy and has a temperature of 99.4 degrees fahrenheit and therefore is unable to coherently respond. The following response has been crafted for him.
I find this topic very interesting. There is so much that can be accomplished if the data from sensors could be harnessed acrossed network systems. While research possibilities are endless, automation tasks must be carefully designed.
I believe such technology is useful, but see the potential misuse. I also agree that individuals will be less likely to send such information out of privacy fears.
Interesting comment. You say this techno-utopia is a generation or more away but Kris Pister is talking about 2010, just a bit more than a year from now! His description of sensor networks in 2010 is almost poetic in its beauty and it keeps you reading to the end. And his idea of smart dust is very intriguing. You think he is entirely wrong? Or maybe, just maybe, all this will occur much sooner!
It is great to read about the potential benefits of a "sensored" Internet. As always these can be used both for good and for evil.
What is important in the end is that privacy and security ramification of these technologies and their application be properly considered and the that appropriate entites (government, businesses, social groups) work together to ensure that the good is such advancement is maximized and that the evil in them is eliminated (hopefully) or greatly diminished.
We definitely welcome the benefits that will accrue to us from these advancements in technology and their application.
There are actually many of these, public, private and educational networks. I think the ham radio guys have a network running without wires.
Most of these are, sadly, stovepipe systems. The sensors only talk up, do not organize much between themselves.
The technology exists to let sensor nets do self discovery. Here is one important element- DPWS. This is a part of all MS Operating systems, and many new printers, cameras, projectors right now.
This self organization works very well with the low power systems (read solar cells, six month batteries) that make widely deployed networks possible.
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