The inevitability of smart dust Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

This post was first published on the O'Reilly Radar.

I've put forward my opinion that desktop computing is dead on more than one occasion, and been soundly put in my place as a result almost every time. "Of course desktop computing isn't dead — look at the analogy you're drawing between the so called death of the mainframe and the death of the desktop. Mainframes aren't dead, there are still plenty of them around!"

Well, yes, that's arguable. But most people, everyday people, don't know that. It doesn't matter if the paradigm survives if it's not culturally acknowledged. Mainframe computing lives on, buried behind the scenes, backstage. As a platform it performs well, in its own niche. No doubt desktop computing is destined to live on, but similarly behind the scenes, and it's already fading into the background.

The desktop will increasingly belong to niche users. Developers need them, at least for now and for the foreseeable future. But despite the prevalent view in Silicon Valley, the world does not consist of developers. Designers need screen real estate, but buttons and the entire desktop paradigm are a hack; I can foresee the day when the computing designers use will not even vaguely resemble today's desktop machines.

For the rest of the world? Computing will almost inevitably diffuse out into our environment. Today's mobile devices are transition devices, artifacts of our stage of technology progress. They too will eventually fade into their own niche. Replacement technologies, or rather user interfaces, like Google's Project Glass are already on the horizon, and that's just the beginning.

People never wanted computers; they wanted what computers could do for them. Almost inevitably the amount computers can do for us on their own, behind our backs, is increasing. But to do that, they need data, and to get data they need sensors. So the diffusion of general purpose computing out into our environment is inevitable.

Everyday objects are already becoming smarter. But in 10 years' time, every piece of clothing you own, every piece of jewelry, and every thing you carry with you will be measuring, weighing and calculating. In 10 years, the world — your world — will be full of sensors.

The sensors you carry with you may well generate more data every second, both for you and about you, than previous generations did about themselves during the course of their entire lives. We will be surrounded by a cloud of data. While the phrase "data exhaust" has already entered the lexicon, we're still essentially at the banging-the-rocks-together stage. You haven't seen anything yet ...

The end point of this evolution is already clear: it's called smart dust. General purpose computing, sensors, and wireless networking, all bundled up in millimeter-scale sensor motes drifting in the air currents, flecks of computing power, settling on your skin, ingested, will be monitoring you inside and out, sensing and reporting — both for you and about you.

Almost inevitably the amount of data that this sort of technology will generate will vastly exceed anything that can be filtered, and distilled, into a remote database. The phrase "data exhaust" will no longer be a figure of speech; it'll be a literal statement. Your data will exist in a cloud, a halo of devices, tasked to provide you with sensor and computing support as you walk along, calculating constantly, consulting with each other, predicting, anticipating your needs. You'll be surrounded by a web of distributed sensors and computing.

Makes desktop computing look sort of dull, doesn't it?

Teardown of Wireless Sensor Tags Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

The Wireless Sensor Tag is a smart tag system by CAO Gadgets.

The Wireless Sensor Tag
(Credit: CAO Gadgets)

The system is based around an Ethernet Tag Manager, a small box that connects directly to your home router and manages the all the associated tags. Basically it acts as a bridge between the wireless tags themselves and the Cloud backend which manages the tags.

The Tag Manager
(Credit: CAO Gadgets)

Each tag has motion and temperature sensors and can be configured to notify you via tweet, email, push notification, or via a URL callback (either to an Internet facing host or directly to an internal IP on your home network) when the tag is moved, or when the temperature goes out of a user defined range, or if the tag itself is moved out of range of the tag manager. Each tag also has a piezo electric buzzer and an LED which can be triggered using the same ruleset.

Ordering

I actually ordered my system back in August, only to be told that the sensor tags had not been CE certified, and they weren't quite prepared to do that just yet. I could either cancel my order, or wait until they had enough orders to that it would make "economic sense" for them to obtain CE marking at which point they'd ship me my order.

I have to admit I wasn't that impressed by that. If you're offering something for sale internationally then you should have the items in stock and you should be able to ship it out of the country. If they weren't prepared to ship into the EU, they shouldn't have processed my order, or billed my credit card.

They also seem to be having supply chain problems as their current stock is sold out and their store has a note on the front page saying that the lead time for a new order is currently one to one and half months between order placement to fulfilment.

However it looked like someone had put a lot of thought into this problem space, and despite the number of similar systems that are starting to appear, the system should be a neat solution. So I hung on, and I'm glad I did, as I I'm actually quite impressed with the build quality of the hardware and how it hangs together as a system...

Unboxing

My system arrived in a plain USPS box. Inside was the tag manager, an ethernet cable, a USB power adapter and cable, ten tags with velcro strips, and somewhat oddly, seven spare batteries.

The Wireless Sensor Tag System

Setting up the system is a fairly simple procedure. Plug the tag manager into your router and let it grab a DHCP address and announce itself to the mytaglist.com server. Theoretically the tags included in the tag manager in your shipment should come pre-associated, but at least for me this didn't seem to be the case, but that said associating them is no big deal. Pull the battery tab, and if you have a flashing LED that means the tag is unassociated, go to the web app and click on the button to add a new tag. The tag then shows up in the list on the web backend and you can go ahead and configure the triggers for that tag.

The Software

Unfortunately despite initial promise, I'm not finding the system amazingly reliable as yet. Tags that are within a few feet of the tag manager are being periodically being reported as "Out of Range" by the web interface. However it's possible that the hardware is fine and I'm just not understanding the software.

Update (12 Nov): Just got an email from the manufacturer saying that they've "fixed some bugs on the server" and these spurious "Out of Range" notifications shouldn't happen any more. It's a bit soon to tell one way or the other, but certainly I'm not seeing them at this point, so this might well be fixed now.

The web application used to manage the tags on your system

The web application is confusing, the interface basically looks like someone has exposed the backend database schema in software without much thought as to how the user is going to interact with it. At the moment the interesting hardware is being let down badly by the back end software, there should be preset options, e.g. "this tag is attached to a door", "this tag is attached to a moveable object", that would auto-configure the tag to common presets.

As it is there are numerous settings to go through for each and every tag, and most of these aren't well explained, and the buttons to set the options are not self explanatory or just flat out confusing. 

I'm sure it makes sense to the programmer that built it, as they understand exactly how the system works and how the components interact, to the rest of us, at least initially, it's confusing. 

I've been playing with the system for about an hour now and I still can't figure out how to get a tag to start bleeping when moved, and then keep on bleeping until manually reset. It's something you'd commonly want to do for a tag that's attached to something that might be stolen, and the system should be able to do it, but I can't figure it out. It's probably obvious once you know how, but...

They need to get a good UX person in, along with a designer, to overhaul the backend. That could make a big difference to the software and its usability for the average person. The system itself is really elegant, and easy to get up and working, the software to configure the tags is letting it down. 

Another frustration for me is that the iOS app that allows you to monitor the tags, and receive push notifications to your phone when one of your triggers is tripped, is only available in the US App Store. The ability to get push notifications was one of the major reasons for me to buy this system, so I'm hoping this is going to be resolved quickly. Again, if you're going to ship outside the US you need to make sure your system is ready to go there.

Update (12 Nov): The iOS app is now available in the UK store, which resolves one of my main problems with the system. Although unfortunately the software UX problems extend to the iOS application. It's comprehensive, but not easy to use.

The iOS Tag Manager application running on my iPhone 5

The Hardware

There is actually very little information about how the system hardware works, and I'm not in favour of "just magic", so I wanted to take a closer look at the board to try and figure out what's going on under the hood.

The rubberised enclosures are more-or-less indestructible and amazingly stretchy so they're fairly easy to take off, which is a good thing as you'll need to do that before pulling out the battery tab to activate the tag as they tend to break off if you try and do this with the enclosure still on...

Wireless Sensor Tag

The tag is powered by a single CR2032 button cell Lithium battery which they're claiming will last anywhere between two months and seven years depending on the sensitivity and polling interval you choose for the tag.

The onboard processor is a Microchip PIC16LF720 micro-controller, an interesting choice that draws about a fifth of the current than the Amtel ATmega micro-controllers used in the familiar Arduino boards. Wireless operations for the tags is provided by the Microchip MRF 49XA radio, which operates in the sub-GHz MHz ISM bands. While this can be changed, the tags ship and by default operate at 436 MHz. Unlike the US this is not an ISM band here in the UK, and although it is part of the amateur band, a license to operate is required and the primary user of the band is the MOD.

The choice of the sub-GHz ISM band is an interesting one, most competing products on the market use the 13MHz RFID bands, or more commonly the 2.4GZ band used by both Wi-Fi, Zigbee and Bluetooth LE devices. I'm guessing that they went with the sub-GHz bands to keep power usage to a minimum and extend the battery life of the tags themselves and provide a good range.

Motion sensing is provided by an Honeywell HMC5883L sensor, a three-axis magnetometer, again an interesting choice as most of the competitors are using linear accelerometers. I'm presuming they used a magnetometer to get good angular measurements, which is a perfect fit for one of the main uses cases for the tags; checking whether doors are open or closed. 

Finally I'm guessing temperature measurements are provided by a fairly anonymous chip marked with "AXWB." While that's just a guess, the word "TEMP" is the silkscreen legend next to it, so it's probably a decent one. I haven't been able to track down the data sheet for this chip or the manufacturer, although the specifications page gives an operating range of -40°C  to 85°C with an typical accuracy of ±1°C and a -2 to +4°C maximum deviation, with a sensor quantisation of around 1°C. 

Developer SDK

The system isn't "open hardware" but that's just fine, not everything has to be open, people have to eat and keep a roof over their head and that takes money. However I was pleased to see that there is some developer documentation available for the web service API of the mytaglist.com backend server, along with the the source code for the management software I was complaining about earlier. The source code for the iOS and Android applications is also available if you email the company.

Update (12 Nov): I emailed the manufacturer and they want to know why I want the source code, and for me to sign an NDA before they release it to me, which wasn't exactly what I was expecting from the API documentation. I'm not sure what to think about that...

The system does crucially rely on a back end server provided by the manufacturer, but the FAQ tells us that if the tag manager can be flashed to point at a different server, and it's at least theoretically possible to run your own. The vendor then talks about licensing their own server side software, and promises that if their mytaglist.com server gets shut down that they'll release the code and allow you to update the tag manager to point at your own server. So I'm happy enough at that point.

Summary

Just as I thought when I initially placed my order, someone has thought long and hard about this problem space, and it really shows in the quality and flexibility of the hardware if not the software. 

I'm fairly sure the software issues are going to get ironed out eventually, at least for me the existence of some sort of documentation would probably solve most of the problems I'm having. Although I do think that for the average user the interface needs a good UX expert and a redesign. 

I also hope to have my hands on the iOS app so I can use the tags as I originally intended, and enable push messaging to my phone, as that'll vastly increase the utility of the system for me.

From poking around on the manufacturer's website it seems that there are probably more tag types coming, including current (for home energy monitoring?) and moisture (for detecting water leaks) sensor tags. I'll certainly go ahead and purchase those when they arrive.

Despite some of the criticism above, I am impressed with this system and would recommend it.

Update (23 Nov): My tags were suffering from spurious "out of range" and "reconnected" messages. So I have just sent all my tags back to CAO Gadgets for a firmware update.

Interviewed at O'Reilly OSCON 2012 Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

I'm currently on the way home from O'Reilly OSCON. While I was out in Portland for the convention I was interviewed by Mac Slocum about growth in embedded devices and the arrival of ubiquitous computing, which should be any time now... probably!

The next, next big thing Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

This article was originally published on the O'Reilly Radar.

In my old age, at least for the computing industry, I'm getting more irritated by smart young things that preach today's big thing, or tomorrow's next big thing, as the best and only solution to my computing problems.

Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and the smart young things need to pay more attention. Because the trends underlying today's computing should be evident to anyone with a sufficiently good grasp of computing history.

Depending on the state of technology, the computer industry oscillates between thin- and thick-client architectures. Either the bulk of our compute power and storage is hidden away in racks of (sometimes distant) servers, or alternatively, into a mass of distributed systems closer to home. This year's reinvention of the mainframe is called cloud computing. While I'm a big supporter of cloud architectures, at least at the moment, I'll be interested to see those preaching it as a last and final solution of all our problems proved wrong, yet again, when computing power catches up to demand once more and you can fit today's data center inside a box not much bigger than a cell phone.

Thinking that just couldn't happen? You should think again, because it already has. The iPad 2 beats most super computers from the early '90s in raw compute power, and it would have been on the world-wide top 500 list of super computers well into 1994. There isn't any reason to suspect that, at least for now, that sort of trend isn't going to continue.

OSCON Data 2011, being held July 25-27 in Portland, Ore., is a gathering for developers who are hands-on, doing the systems work and evolving architectures and tools to manage data. (This event is co-located with OSCON.)

Save 20% with the code OS11RAD

Yesterday's next big thing

Yesterday's "next big thing" was the World Wide Web. I still vividly remember standing in a draughty computing lab, almost 20 years ago now, looking over the shoulder of someone who had just downloaded first public build of NCSA Mosaic via some torturous method. I shook my head and said "It'll never catch on, why would you want images?" That shows what I know. Although to be fair, I was a lot younger back then. I was failing to grasp history because I was neither well read enough, nor old enough, to have seen it all before. And since I still don't claim to be either well read or old enough this time around, perhaps you should take everything I'm saying with a pinch of salt. That's the thing with the next big thing: it's always open to interpretation.

The next big thing?

The machines we grew up with are yesterday's news. They're quickly being replaced by consumption devices, with most of the rest of day-to-day computing moving into the environment and becoming embedded into people's lives. This will happen almost certainly without people noticing.

While it's pretty obvious that mobile is the current "next" big thing, it's arguable whether mobile itself has already peaked. The sleek lines of the iPhone in your pocket are already almost as dated as the beige tower that used to sit next to the CRT on your desk.

Technology has not quite caught up to the overall vision and neither have we — we've been trying to reinvent the desktop computer in a smaller form factor. That's why the mobile platforms we see today are just stepping stones.

Most people just want gadgets that work, and that do the things they want them to do. People never really wanted computers. They wanted what computers could do for them. The general purpose machines we think of today as "computers" will naturally dissipate out into the environment as our technology gets better.

The next, next big thing

To those preaching cloud computing and web applications as the next big thing: they've already had their day and the web as we know it is a dead man walking. Looking at the job board at O'Reilly's Strata conference earlier in the year, the next big thing is obvious. It's data. Heck, it's not even the next big thing anymore. It's pulling into the station, and to data scientists, the web and its architecture is just a commodity. Bought and sold in bulk.

The overflowing job board at February's Strata conference.

As for the next, next big thing? Ubiquitous computing is the thing after the next big thing, and almost inevitably the thirst for more data will drive it. But then eventually, inevitably, the data will become secondary — a commodity. Yesterday's hot job was a developer, today with the arrival of Big Data it has become a mathematician. Tomorrow it could well be a hardware hacker.

Count on it. History goes in cycles and only the names change.

The secret is to bang the rocks together Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

This article was originally published on the O'Reilly Radar.

Every so often a piece of technology can become a lever that lets people move the world, just a little bit. The Arduino is one of those levers.

It started off as a project to give artists access to embedded micro-processors for interaction design projects, but I think it's going to end up in a museum as one of the building blocks of the modern world. It allows rapid, cheap, prototyping for embedded systems. It turns what used to be fairly tough hardware problems into simpler software problems.

CREDIT: Arduino.cc

The Arduino UNO.

The Arduino, and the open hardware movement that has grown up with it, and at least to certain extent around it, is enabling a generation of high-tech tinkerers both to break the seals on proprietary technology, and prototype new ideas with fairly minimal hardware knowledge. This maker renaissance has led to an interesting growth in innovation. People aren't just having ideas, they're doing something with them.

Goodbye desktop

The underlying trend is clear. The general purpose computer is a dead end. Most people just want gadgets that work, and that do the things they want them to do. They never really wanted computers. They wanted what computers could do for them.

While general purpose computers will live on, like the horse after the arrival of the automobile, these systems will be relegated to two small niches. Those of us that build the embedded systems people are using elsewhere will still have a need for general purpose computers, as will those who can't resist tinkering. But that's the extent of it. Nobody else will need them. Quite frankly, nobody else will want them.

We'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys. - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

The humble Arduino is the start of that. The board has multiple-form factors, but a single-programming interface. Sizes range from the "standard" palm of your hand for prototyping, down to the size of your thumb for the almost-professional almost-products now starting to come out of the maker renaissance. From wearable versions like the Lilypad, sized and customised to be stitched into clothing, to specially built boards launched into space onboard the new generation of nano-satellites build on a shoe-string budget by hobbyists, to Google's new Android Open Accessory Kit.

CREDIT: NASA

The ANDE deployment from STS-127 in July 2009.

Every interesting hardware prototype to come along seems to boast that it is Arduino-compatible, or just plain built on top of an Arduino. It's everywhere.

Maker Faire Bay Area will be held May 21-22 in San Mateo, Calif. Event details, exhibitor profiles, and ticket information can be found at the Maker Faire site.

Things are still open. They're just different things.

There has been a great deal of fear-mongering about the demise of the general purpose computer and the emergence of a new generation of consumption devices as more-or-less closed platforms. When the iPad made its debut, Cory Doctorow argued that closed platforms send the wrong signal:

Buying an iPad for your kids isn't a means of jump-starting the realization that the world is yours to take apart and reassemble; it's a way of telling your offspring that even changing the batteries is something you have to leave to the professionals.

I'm philosophical about the passing of the computer. What we're seeing here is a transition from one model of computing to another. We've seen that before and there were similar outcries for the death of the mainframe, as there has been for the death of the desktop. There is plenty of room for closed platforms, but the underlying trend is toward more openness, not less. It's just the things that are open and the things that are closed are changing. The skills needed to work with the technology are changing as well.

What the Arduino and the open hardware movement have done is made hard things easy, and impossible things merely hard. Before now, getting to the prototype stage for a hardware project was hard, at least for most people, and going beyond a crude prototype was impossible for many. Now it's the next big thing.

The Emperor has no clothes Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

The number of people publishing sales statistics for their iPhone applications are few and far between. Apart from people like Pinch Media, who still really only have a skewed sample, the only people with a real overview of what's going on are Apple themselves. The rest of us just have to rely on our own experience, and anecdotal evidence like the recent post by iPhone developer Rick Strom.

Perhaps we're going to see a bit more transparency now that TechCrunch picked up Rick's post and ran with it, or at least some sort of acknowledgement that the App Store isn't going make developer's rich overnight.

I'm building applications for the store not because it's going to pay my mortgage any time soon, but because at last I have a mobile platform where I can "scratch my own itch". After years of pushing the boulder uphill on the on Series 60 platform, and before that on the Palm, the iPhone and Apple's SDK is a welcome breeze in an otherwise desolate wasteland of overly complicated development environments. The barrier for entry is just that much lower and, despite not really being viewed as a mainstream language, I've always had a soft spot for Objective-C. It fits the way I think about things...

...unlike Java. I've never really gotten on with Java. Despite dire warnings to the contrary I haven't missed not having it on my iPhone, the lack of Flash support is by far the more noticeable.

I was disappointed, although not terribly unsurprised, to learn that Google had gone with Java as their development platform and Eclipse as their IDE of choice for Android applications. Despite that I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a G1 so that I can play around with the hardware, which allows you to do some cool things you can't yet do with the iPhone.

As Russell Beatie said back in 2005,

If someone's using a PC to demo the next big thing, then it's not the next big thing...

Despite the iPhone I consider the mobile web as still born. I rarely use the "real" web on my iPhone, instead the information is brought to me by those native applications that Apple didn't initially think were a good idea. The next big thing isn't going to be the Web, the last big thing was the Web, it's not going to be the next big thing as well.

Using the new iPhone SDK 3.0 your application can communicate with accessories attached to the phone, and rumours suggest that the next generation iPhone will have a magnetometer plugging the gap between the iPhone and the G1. Sensing is coming to your phone, and it's not just accelerometers anymore...

The signs of the next big thing; in the mainstream with devices like the iPhone and the G1, in academia with projects like Siftables and Google's PowerMeter, and out on the open-hardware fringes with things like the Arduino, are everywhere.

People won't get rich (re-)writing niche iPhone applications which get lost in the noise of the App Store. I know that, despite enjoying the experience of cranking out software, I'm not going to get rich except by the oddest of chances.

However a bunch of people are going to get rich, and probably fairly soon. We're entering a period of change. The next big thing is ubiquitous computing, and don't let anyone tell you differently.

Compared to a real ubiquitous computing we're at the banging the rocks together stage, but the recent trends towards embedded systems and cloud computing are obvious first steps down the path. The Emperor may have no clothes on, but he's got a good suit waiting in the closet...

The death of the desktop, the end of the Internet? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

With the publication of his new book, "The Future of the Internet: And How to Stop It", Johnathan Zittrain has started a debate amoungst the great and the good. People suddenly seem to be getting worried that gadgets are killing the Internet and that the iPhone might murder the web. He argues that today's technological market is dominated by two contrasting business models: the generative and the non-generative. The first model, general purpose computers, allow third parties to build upon and share through them. The second, non-generative model, is more restricted, with appliances that can only be modified by the vendor. He is very much afraid that the second model, where we are locked in by vendors is coming to predominate.

Well first of all I think he's just plain wrong, you only have to look at appliances like the Linksys NSLU2 or even the iPhone, which is oddly enough seems to be being held up as the poster child for vendor lock in, to see that we aren't being locked in by these devices at all. Or at least, some of us aren't. I think he's right in one respect, I think we're entering a period where the number of people that can hack on the devices we use to talk to the network is going to become smaller.

I'm not worried, like Peter Semmelhack I'm old enough to remember how it was before desktop computers came along. However unlike Peter I'm more philisophical about the passing of the desktop computer. I'm surprised he isn't because from my perspective he's one of the people that are storming the barricades. If the desktop dies, it'll be because of the open source hardware movement, and people like him...

Which is why I argued that we're entering a period of change, it's not that we're being locked into devices, it's that the people with the skills to hack on the devices are changing.

Out of the existing infrastructure, the idea of network neutrality is the important thing to hang onto. I'm far more worried about the possible loss of that, than I am about information silos or Facebook.

With open hardware like the Arduino arriving we've been given a new tool. In the same way the arrival of the desktop computer changed everything, the growing availability of open source hardware will do it again. Peter should drink some of his own Kool-Aid.

The Web as we know it today might already be dying, and that may be no bad thing. Because you have to remember that the Web isn't the Internet. The Internet existed before the Web and it'll be around a long time afterwards. This too, shall pass...

In its place I think we're looking at the arrival of something much more interesting, a pervasive information architecture. The New York Times (via Slashdot) carried an article recently talking about embedded devices, but there is an important distinction to be drawn between these and ubiquitous computing, where you have a pervasive architecture of computing devices. Between independent gadgets responding to simple environmental conditions, and a pervasive information architecture shared across a number of ubiquitous computing devices.

Compared to a real ubiquitous computing we're at the banging the rocks together stage

A big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere...and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys. - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

but that's no bad thing either, projects like Quickies from MIT, while still awkward, show the potential of moving our computing off the desktop and embedding it into the real world. It's an exciting time to be alive...


When the web came along and changed everything, I was really surprised that I was going to get to live through such a change. After all the desktop computer had only come along a few years before, it had changed everything, and while my first computer was a PDP-11 I was a bit too young to really appreciate what had happened at the time. Now I get to live through yet another huge change in the way the world works, people like Chris Anderson are quietly making it happen. If you haven't been following along Chris has been quietly scratching his itch and building autonomous UAV.


This wouldn't have been possible a couple of years ago, going beyond a crude prototype with hardware was hard. Even getting to the prototype stage was hard. Now it's the next big thing...

The fact that you have to go out and learn some electronics to take part in the next big thing isn't such a big deal. You're supposed to like learning new things. Go buy a soldering iron and stop worrying about information silos so much...

The mobile web, still born? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

Back in 2005 Russell Beattie said,

If someone's using a PC to demo the next big thing, then it's not the next big thing...

He no long seems to believe that and announced today (via Read/Write Web) that he's calling it quits on his startup Mowser which joins the deadpool today. I'm not surprised. I firmly believe in his statement, but I've always disagreed with his assumption that the next big thing is mobile browsing.

I've argued before that the reason that the iPhone is so successful in the mobile browser market is that it isn't a phone. It isn't competing against the rest of the smart phone market because it's not a phone, it's an internet device, that happens to be able to make phone calls.

When it comes down to it mobile phones aren't about features, they're about ergonomics. That pretty much rules out being able to browse the web, people will make quick dashes, raids, for information. But spending time browsing?

The next big thing isn't going to be on a desktop, desktops are pretty much dead tech except for specialised uses, but the next big thing also isn't going to be the web. The last big thing was the web, it isn't going to be the next thing as well, making it mobile isn't big enough.

The next big thing is ubiquitous computing, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise...

ETech: Ambient Computing Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

I've come in a couple of minutes late to David Rose's talk on The PC-free Internet: Ambient Computing, so I've ended up sitting on the floor at the back of the room. The room is packed full, wth people sitting everywhere on the floor. Looks like the organisers severely under estimated how popular this talk would be...

He's got an interesting take on ubiquitous tech, he's started off by talking about fictional examples. Wonder Woman's lasso of truth, the wicked witch's magic mirror, the Weasley's clock.


He's talking about how we perceive; early stage processing (in hardware) which is rapid and parellel and late stage processing (in software) which is a slower and much more serial process.

He's talking about interfaces and making good points about shape, colour and reusing existing metaphors like dashboards for new purposes. He's illustrating some of these points by examining Internet Devices, from his own company Ambient Devices, and the data casting network they've built.

Oh that's cool, he's talking about using transparent LCD technology to embed information in glass, although it looks like for the production devices he's using something a bit less cool than that...

...he's arguing that ambient devices are a new class of electronics. Sometime summarisation is more valuable because it requires less time and attention.

Pick it up and shake it Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

Remember the smart clothes pegs, intelligent spoons, thinking carpets, ubiquitous umbrella and the smart chopping board? Not to mention the WiFi t-shirt? All examples, varying in quality, of ubiquitous computing interfaces.

A classic ubiquitous computing interface is novel, but immediately understandable. You shouldn't have to read the manual to understand how it works, it should just makes sense because of the ergonomics of the device. I'd point towards something like BumpTop as opposed to a traditional desktop approach for Tablet PCs. You need an interface which is an extension of how the real world works.

Accelerometers were always going to play a role in ubiquitous computing interfaces to mobile phones, and we began to see the first examples of this over two years ago. However phones with accelerometers, like Nokia's N95 and Apple's iPhone, are now starting to appear in the mass market and people are finding interesting ways of using them...

There have been several examples of interfaces using the in-built accelerometers over the last two or three months, but the one that finally got this post out of my edit queue, allows you to shake your handset once to view a new text message, and then again to lock your handset.


ShakeSMS
However despite triggering me to finally finish this post, it's probably one of the least intuitive of the ones I've come across. With a far more intuitive interface comes an application, from the same people, that lets you flip over your phone to silence the ringer, or an alarm, and then flip it back to return turn them back on again. This makes perfect sense to me...


FlipSilent
Of course what put this post in my edit queue in the first place, back in November last year, was the application that allowed you to create a secure connection (via Slashdot and New Scientist) between two Bluetooth devices by shaking them together to pair them. Again, this makes perfect sense, and it extends existing common sense ideas of how the world works into the computing realm.


OpenUAT
Returning to text messages I stumbled across another project, called Shoogle (via New Scientist). Here the accelerometer, and audio feedback, is used to tell you about the state of the device. Like the Flashbag, a USB flash drive that actually changes size in line with how much data it contains, we're extending a concept that is already familiar. The fact that if you shake a container it makes more noise if it contains more items, and mapping that directly onto the phone's interface. I like this one as well, who hasn't forgotten about a text message that arrived when they were driving, or otherwise occupied. If your phone 'jingled' in your pocket like your keys you'd have an intuitive reminder that you had a message waiting.


Shoogle
With touch screen technology finally coming of age the next step in the user interface war pretty much has to be using those in-built accelerometers. So with shades of the Etch-A-Sketch past, you should just pick it up and shake it...

Update: Yet another accelerometer application. ShakeLock is a Python application that will lock (and unlock) you phone when you pick it up and shake it...


ShakeLock

Smart clothing for Geeks Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

Remember the smart clothes pegs, intelligent spoons, thinking carpets, ubiquitous umbrella and the smart chopping board?

CREDIT: ThinkGeek

Ubiquitous computing gone mad?
It's not really how I thought smart clothing would start to trickle down into the consumer market, but ThinkGeek's new t-shirt (via CrunchGear) is an interesting foray into ubiquitous computing. I'm just not sure it's very useful...

Remember the ubiquitous umbrella? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

Anyone remember the ubiquitous umbrella from around the middle of last year? Well it looks like someone has actually brought a version to market.

CREDIT: Ambient

The Ambient Umbrella
I must admit to liking Materious concept look-and-feel better, that big chunky glowing curved handle looked good, but I'm still impressed that someone is bringing this to market with the expectation that people are actually going to buy it. Ubiquitous computing might be the future, but only when it's a lot cheaper than US$125 for an umbrella.