09-02-2012, 12:50 PM
The X-Internet Connecting the Physical World with the Cyber World
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Introducing the Future: The Extended Internet
Twenty years ago, it was almost unimaginable how the brick-sized cell phone device that
some top-level businesspeople were using would soon change our lives. A few years later,
when e-mail was introduced, it was hard to imagine all the information, entertainment,
convenience and communication that today’s Internet would bring. Similarly, the X-Internet
can be difficult for people to “get” upon first hearing about it.
But, without a doubt, the X-Internet will transform lives and businesses in much more
powerful ways than the PC or even today’s Internet itself. Today’s Internet connects people
to people. Oftentimes it’s not a direct connection, but think about it: retail sites, databases,
games, content, search engines and more are all ultimately created by people, using
display formats that make sense to people, with the sole purpose of serving other people.
The X-Internet goes much further: It adds connectivity for physical objects, creating a
wealth of new opportunities for intelligent interaction between people and things, and even
between things and other things.
Advanced, cooperative wireless technology
The X-Internet will connect all kinds of things in all kinds of spaces. Mobility will be
the norm. That means, first and foremost, that the X-Internet will depend on pervasive
wireless connectivity. At the same time, different X-Internet applications will have different
requirements for radio frequency, range, data rate and cost — so cooperative wireless
technologies will be required to allow systems based on multiple standards to work
together seamlessly.
In an X-Internet enabled home, for example, low data-rate systems such as home
security, monitoring, and environmental control will share the same network that
streams high-bandwidth music, video, and games to entertainment devices throughout
the house. Enabling technologies for the X-Internet must automatically resolve the
differences between various radio technologies and communications protocols to allow
seamless interaction.
Context awareness
True seamlessness depends on the ability of devices and even inanimate objects to sense
their environment, and to communicate their own presence and context to other relevant
devices and objects. Depending on the application, context-aware nodes may sense:
• The technical environment, including what networks and devices are within range, what
RF standards are in use, what applications and content are available and so on. This
mode of awareness enables X-Internet nodes to automatically join available networks and
exchange data as required by the application.
• The physical environment, including aspects such as temperature, moisture, lighting,
vibration and equipment parameters. Many of these capabilities are already in use
today by manufacturing, distribution and other vertical enterprises. The X-Internet will
require similar capabilities to be distributed horizontallly across all kinds of objects —
exponentially expanding the types of data and relationships available for processing
to enable new kinds of business and personal applications.
• Human behavior, and other new categories of complex, highly integrated awareness.
Devices of the future will observe user behavior and monitor the environment to
seamlessly deliver the appropriate content and services. For example, the security
systems of the future might be able to automatically recognize the difference between
a resident and an intruder, notify the authorities, activate and control video cameras, lock
rooms containing valuables and more — all without requiring the user to configure and
activate the system manually.
