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Computer Frontiers
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The future
of computing technology is taking shape.
By William Poe
What are the next great advancements in computers? Hard to say—even
the experts don’t have a clear picture of the frontiers in computing.
“People tend to look at one technology and project it into the future,
rather then future advances on a broad front,” says Jeff Wacker,
vice president and chief technology officer with EDS, a worldwide
provider of information systems with a considerable presence in
St. Louis. “In the 1930s, everyone was predicting flying cars, because
we already had automobile and airplane technology. But the vision
was based on another reality at that time—really poor roads. Well,
we decided to build new roads instead, and we’re still waiting for
flying cars.”
While his employer calls him a “futurist,” Wacker has a more down-to-earth
description. “They pay me to play with toys,” he says.
And, for a guy who restores antique cars, he’s got some pretty futuristic
gadgets strewn about his EDS office, including a “galvactivator”
glove (a MIT Media Lab prototype that measures a person’s stress
levels) and a jacket with a keypad embroidered into the shoulder
and other computer components sewn into the fabric. “You’ve got
to be careful about doing the laundry, though,” he says.
While the latest buzz among tech heads is all about computers you
can wear, Wacker and others say most of us will probably soon be
benefitting more from new “smart cards” in our wallets, use of improved
wireless technology and new communications protocols that will make
it easier to conduct business on the world wide web.
Wacker, who has developed a presentation he calls “The Next Big
Things,” says the next big things in computing are, in fact, in
two broad areas: “the whole concept of mobility, or anywhere access”
and what he calls the “right five: the right information, in the
right form, to the right person, at the right place, and the right
time. In other words, just exactly the information you need.”
“When you think about it, we’ve been slaves to the computer,” says
Wacker whose membership in the World Future Society belies his aw-shucks
pronouncement that he is merely “an old farm boy from Nebraska.”
Most people, Wacker explains, use a computer only when it’s sitting
on our desktops or in our laps and frequently cannot access a computer
when it’s needed most.
For instance, one EDS customer, Wacker says, determined that many
of its key workers do not have access to a computer when most necessary—while
in the petroleum fields.
“What’s needed is information to be concurrent with the use of that
information. Think of it as just-in-time computing,” Wacker says.
“And for men in the petroleum fields, wearable computers give them
the information they need when they need it and in a form they can
use, if the computer can respond to voice commands. These men need
to have their hands free.”
Ah...there’s the buzz again—wearable computers.
Although the buzz is mostly about wearable computers by the likes
of Levi Strauss Co. (Headphones nestled in a jacket hood connect
to a cell phone in the left pocket or the MP3 player in the right
pocket and a microphone near the throat area.) and Charmed Technology
(a MIT Media Lab spin-off that is developing technology to connect
people to the Internet through eyeglasses, necklaces and lapel pins),
the really serious work is focusing on wearable computers for the
industrial marketplace.
IBM’s
electronic newspaper allows readers
to select the news they want delivered.
The customized newspaper is an example
of what to expect in the future—computing
that meets the needs of the user. The
information is compiled electronically and
laid out for the reader. The “screen” or
newspaper is refreshed on a constant basis
to reflect updated events. |
IBM, for instance, has about 100 fully functional wearable computers
being tested in the field right now, according to Lee Green, director
of corporate design for IBM.
Green says the promise of the IBM Wearable PC is “allowing you to
access information relating exactly to the task at hand. It’s about
working more easily and having access to information you normally
don’t have today. It’s about allowing you to work in a much more
natural way.”
The IBM Wearable PC is a fully functional PC—which can perform desktop-quality
computing tasks such as word processing and spreadsheet calculations—that
the user wears on his or her belt. The Wearable PC, though, is much
more than, say, a tiny laptop computer that clips to a belt. Voice
interactive design makes the computer especially useful for professionals
who need mobile access to large amounts of data while keeping their
hands free for non-computing tasks.
For example, Green says IBM is field testing the Wearable PC with
an organization that uses the apparatus to inspect the condition
of ocean-going ships and off-shore drilling rigs. With the IBM Wearable
PC clipped to their belts, inspectors can climb slippery rope ladders
and squeeze through tight passages while comparing field observations
and measurements to structural drawings and previous inspection
results stored in the computer’s database. Using a voice recognition
system, workers can log important information as they conduct the
inspection.
Green says about 100 prototypes of the IBM Wearable PC are being
tested in the field and are only about a year away from manufacture
for certain industry-specific applications.
The central processing unit (CPU) of the IBM Wearable PC, Green
says, is about the size of a paperback book and weighs less than
a pound. Its monitor, about the size of a pen cap, rests an inch
from the eye and is held in place with a headband. This configuration,
Green adds, gives the user the illusion of viewing a standard 14-inch
screen at normal viewing distances. In this case, the monitor appears
to be floating in front of its users, following them even when they
turn their heads. Primary interaction with the IBM Wearable PC is
through voice or specialized pointing devices. The computer talks
back through a speaker built into the monitor and comes with an
eraser-sized mouse that works like a joystick. Because the Wearable
PC is a fully functional PC (about as powerful as an IBM ThinkPad
560X notebook computer), those users longing for convention can
attach a standard desktop monitor, keyboard and printer.
The result, Green says is “untethered, easy-to-access information
that is always on and always available.”
According to EDS’s Wacker, computers will be worn, much as eyeglasses
or clothing are worn, and interact with the user based on the context
of the situation. He calls these computers “context aware.” The
voice interface, Wacker adds, is critical to the picture. “I want
to talk to it, and I want it to be part of what I do.”
Computer technology is advancing on a broad front, including Internet,
e-business, infrastructure, computing and embedded chip technology,
which includes so-called “smart cards.”
Credit card companies such as MasterCard International, Inc. here
are already issuing smart cards, although distribution is more pervasive
in Europe.
Smart cards are, in essence, “a single piece of plastic for multiple
uses,” says Dana J. Lorberg, senior vice president and chief financial
officer for MasterCard’s global technology and operations in St.
Louis. “There is a lot of intelligence on the card itself. It really
is a smart card.”
Lorberg, who managed MasterCard’s development of the smart card,
says that the cards can be used in a wide variety of ways. For example,
the consumer can deposit money to the card’s account and use the
card for everything from purchases over the Internet to paying the
pizza delivery person. As smart cards begin to be adopted, Lorberg
says, look for vending machines and other money-operated devices
to add card readers and for the transit industry to install card
readers at toll booths and mass transit stops.
But the cards can also store personal information and double as
identification cards and security keys much as hotel card keys do
now. In fact, one of the first uses of smart cards in St. Louis
is at Washington University where Lorberg says they are being issued
to students who use them as ID cards and for cash in campus food
establishments.
Smart cards, Lorberg says, are “a great advancement in giving consumers
greater choices.”
In other areas, one of the biggest current trends is wireless computing,
which can be experienced now with e-mail pagers, wireless Internet
access, net-ready PDAs and cell phones that provide net access through
new Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).
In the world of e-business, experts say we will soon see standards
for micropayments, metanetworks (networks of networks) that allow
Internet users to access many exchanges at the same time, e-money,
and electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) technology will
remove paper from the bill payment process.
On the Internet technology side, those in the know say we will soon
see standardized instant messaging and Internet Printing Protocol
(IPP) that allows you to send a job to a printer in another country
as easily as to a printer in your office.
In personal computing, context-aware wearable computers get the
buzz, but in-vehicle computing and connectivity are well on the
way, along with voice user interfaces for hand-held devices and
self-organizing networks that should make all of your devices work
together the way you want, experts say.
William V. Poe is principal of Poe Communications, a St. Louis
advertising and marketing communications firm. |
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