Whats New in the Future of the Internet

Recently we have been talking about internet applications in general, but this morning you are going to talk to us about some very specific new things on the internet, that have been showcased at a conference recently. What are some of these new things?

Over the last few weeks we have spoken about many of the applications that the Internet can provide right now, as well as many of the innovations that can become reality in the future. A Conference was held last week in the USA, the Association for Computing Machinery's ``ACM1: Beyond Cyberspace''. Thousands of adult professionals vied with equal numbers of school children for the opportunity to converse with interactive robots, swing over cyber lily pads and dance in the digital rain.

The conference was all about what we need to be doing now in order to make society better in the next 10 to 20 years. The old Internet is dead, says Bob Metcalfe, but ``long live the Internet.''

At this gathering in the heart of the Silicon Valley, some of the greatest minds in the world of computers come together once every four years to show off their wares. "These are the dreamers trying to do what the computer world thought of doing with computers 50 years ago — use the computer to augment human intelligence.

Some of the devices on display here move beyond the keyboard and mouse, relying instead on more natural human behaviour to receive their commands. Some technology makes you feel like you are really there. These are devices that engineers say could change entertainment, architecture, medicine, and even aircraft maintenance.

Aircraft maintenance is a very current issue, considering some of the problems that our airlines have been experiencing with groundings etc.

Aircraft

Boeing's Haptics' technology.

Rather than physically assemble airplanes, Boeing is creating sophisticated virtual models that enable engineers to design and test aircraft parts across the Internet. Boeing Engineers can take apart the landing gear of a Boeing 777 with the aid of a three-dimensional mouse. In addition to visual information, the mouse provides force feedback. When two parts come together a computer provides resistance and simulates the sound of metal clinking against metal.

Once the technology is perfected it will save millions of dollars on aircraft design and greatly enhance safety.

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to touch the virtual world?

A collaboration currently underway between The Boeing Company and SensAble Technologies, Inc. will allow you to do just that. Based upon unique software developed at Boeing, the project enables a user to manipulate a modestly complex rigid object within an arbitrarily complex environment of static rigid objects, while at the same time yielding stable and convincing force feedback through a full 6 degrees of freedom (6-DOF—3 translational and 3 rotational). With this capability, it will be possible to test assemblability in a CAD model, for example, feeling the clearances between a fuel pump and the engine housing in the digital mockup of an automobile.

Current graphical applications allow users to navigate within a 3D virtual reality scene. However a typical 3D scene graph does not allow the user to sense physical properties, such as collisions and reaction forces, which are critical to realistic and efficient real-time simulations.

It wasn’t all high-end engineering applications that were at the conference.

Internet-enabled picture frames

Internet-enabled picture frames already exist -- they become interesting outlets for Internet-sourced content.''

You need not own a PC, or a web TV, or any gizmo that can handle photos sent via e-mail or posted to web pages. Instead, the photos materialise in your living room on an ordinary-looking wooden picture frame. This is no standard picture frame, though. It's a newly introduced electronic picture frame that connects to the Internet via any standard telephone jack. The frame automatically fetches up to 10 photos at a time from a special website, and displays them like a slide show. No web knowledge or user intervention is required. It just works.

A so-called "Digital Family Portrait" — actually a computer linked to the Internet — can keep track of an ailing relative for instance.

Smart Medicine Cabinets

There is a smart medicine cabinet that talks to you, keeps track of what drugs you should be taking, and even monitors your temperature and blood pressure

Virtual Kitchens

A better world will include Internet digital kitchens that remind forgetful cooks when they have already added salt to the potatoes or turned a burner up too high.

Kitchen appliances and containers can be tagged with bar codes or sensors that feed information to a central computer anywhere in the world. One of the first motivations to develop these projects was to help the elderly live at home longer. This same philosophy could also be useful for parents distracted by small children.

Of course such a system would be incredibly useful to the visually impaired!

Cars

Inside a car linked to the Internet, a smart card tailors systems to you, even setting the radio to your favourite Internet stations. Voice controls and touch screens allow you to hear your e-mail while you drive.

Daimler Chrysler has an IT Cruiser, a wired version of Chrysler's popular PT Cruiser. The car uses the Java programming language and the Linux operating system to hook into the wireless Internet. Passengers are able to play games, MP3s or videos by tapping on backseat terminals, while a driver uses voice-recognition software to check e-mail or listen to audio books.

Through its navigational software, the car is programmed to provide mathematically guaranteed responses to endless ``are we there yet?'' queries.

Virtual Reality

Sony says they are less interested in the commercial application of technology then in its creative potential. During the symposium they suspended two rope swings from the steel rafters of the convention centre.

As the swing rider lazily drifted through circles of rippling colours and the sounds of waterfalls, he talked about his vision of the world where technology leads to a world that is friendlier and more meditative. ``You get a breeze and you cool off some, and you say, hmm, that's not like any technology I'm used to,'' he mused.

Entertainment Internet

The next big thing will be the Entertainment Internet, which of course means the Broadcast Video Internet, which of course includes production values appropriate for the Education Internet,'' says Ed Metcalfe. He further comments that `Not that communication (e-mail) and commerce (dot-coms) will decline, but that entertainment uses of the Internet will take over driving it.''

Within five years, we will begin to see full-immersion, visual-auditory, virtual reality shared environments.

The images will be written directly to our retinas from our eyeglasses and, eventually, contact lenses. We will have wireless high-bandwidth connection to the Internet at all times. We will have sensors that detect the position and movement of our body.

The electronics for all of this will be so small that they will be woven into our clothing. We can then project an image of our body to someone else over the Web and visit in a virtual environment.

So you and I could sit together in a virtual studio on a virtual Pacific Island or virtual African game reserve (or a virtual office in a virtual company) and it would seem very real. It would be just like being there. By the end of this decade, this type of virtual reality experience will be a ubiquitous way to meet with other people. Web sites will offer a panoply of virtual environments to experience.''

One computer scientist has already literally created someone else using virtual reality. He's created an alter ego, a female rock musician, and demonstrates her act.

Ambient Intelligence

Ambient intelligence, refers to an electronic environment that is sensitive and responsive to people and will truly serve people without the technology tricks of today. Most of the technology exists today, but is mostly immature and too expensive.

All of this is part of an inexorable trend toward an ``experience economy,'' balancing work and private lives. An example:

Ellen returns home after a long day's work. At the front door an intelligent surveillance camera recognizes her, the door alarm is switched off, and the door unlocks and opens. When she enters the hall the house map indicates that her husband Peter is at an art fair in Paris, and that her daughter Charlotte is in the children's playroom, where she is playing with an interactive screen. The remote children surveillance service is notified that she is at home, and subsequently the on-line connection is switched off. When she enters the kitchen the family memo frame lights up to indicate that there are new messages. The shopping list that has been composed needs confirmation before it is sent to the supermarket for delivery. There is also a message notifying that the home information system has found new information on the semantic Web about economic holiday cottages with sea sight in Spain. She briefly connects to the playroom to say hello to Charlotte, and her video picture automatically appears on the flat screen that is currently used by Charlotte. Next, she connects to Peter at the art fair in Paris. He shows her through his contact lens camera some of the sculptures he intends to buy, and she confirms his choice. In the mean time she selects one of the displayed menus that indicate what can be prepared with the food that is currently available from the pantry and the refrigerator. Next, she switches to the video on demand channel to watch the latest news program. Through the follow me she switches over to the flat screen in the bedroom where she is going to have her personalized workout session. Later that evening, after Peter has returned home, they are chatting with a friend in the living room with their personalized ambient lighting switched on. They watch the virtual presenter that informs them about the programs and the information that have been recorded by the home storage server earlier that day.

XML

Speaking before a gathering of scientists and technical professionals, Microsoft’s Ballmer said the acceptance of XML (Extensible Markup Language) as the new "lingua franca" of cyberspace would effectively clear away lingering barriers blocking companies from exchanging information over the Internet.

XML will provide a foundation "so that everyone's work can leverage and build upon" the work of others.

"The whole gist of XML relates to the way that things (on the Internet) can talk together," Ballmer said.

In a related vein, Ballmer talked up the benefits of SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) in this next phase of the development of the Internet. SOAP, which is essentially a way to deliver XML payloads around the Internet, was co-developed by Microsoft in association with IBM and UserLand Software and has since been widely adopted by many leading developers.

Progress; is there a Darker Side?

Some leading technologists admit that as computer technology advances, we run the risk of giving up our privacy and control.

"The downside of this powerful merger of humans and machines is the ability to control information about humans that until now they never gave up freely," Gage says.

As computers become more and more a part of our lives, they'll disappear into our lives. "In the future, computers are going away," said Ethernet inventor Bill Metcalf. "They're disappearing. It's like you don't think of the refrigerator as an application of the electric motor. You think of it as a place to keep your food cold. The same will happen to computers."

Arthur Hissey
Computer Research & Technology
www.crt.net.au