Networked devices
Jon Lebkowsky at WorldChanging blogs a message posted by Frank Coluccio referring to the October Scientific American (which I have not yet seen) that talks about “Internet Zero,” “an architecture that defines the protocols and internetworking relationships of everyday objects found in the home and the business place.” As Jon says, “As networks grow and evolve and we add more devices (as with Internet Zero), it’s important to be explicit and forceful about the requirement to deep it open and ‘dumb’.”
Around 1990, I had this great idea: DataTotes. Y’see, you plug this little device into the household objects you want to configure — thermostat, VCR, A/C — so it could read the current settings. Then you plug the little device (a DataTote, get it?) into your PC where you could use your keyboard and mouse to configure the settings the way you want. Then you make one more trip back to the device to upload the new settings. And all it would require is for every manufacturer to insert a chip and a dataport into every item they manufactured, and agree to accept my data standard. A million dollar idea! I was just ahead of my time, in the sense of being wrong about every piece of how “datatoting” would be accomplished. starting with the fact that data wouldn’t be toted.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
Don’t be so sure about data not being toted.
In fact, your invention is practically Pick-and-Drop: http://www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/rekimoto/pickdrop/
The physical act of carrying things around carries great meaning and is tremendously intuitive.
As more and more devices, we used to only have a physical interface with, get a data interface – the idea of carrying the data interface OVER the old physical interface will become more and more appealing.
p.s. A lot of us has had this idea, including my humble self (http://www.classy.dk/log/archive/001056.html) and also I think ideas of this nature was already part of earlier ubiquitous computing initiatives at PARC and other places.