Caxton, this is from a list I receive. Interesting.
From: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
Subject: IP: Bell Labs Predictions For 2025 -- from Telecom Digest
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 00:51:52 -0500
From: The Old Bear <oldbear@arctos.com>
Subject: Bell Labs Predictions For 2025
Bell Labs predicts a "Global Communications Skin" by 2025
MURRAY HILL, NEW JERSEY, U.S.A., 1999 NOV 12 (NB) -- By StevenBonisteel, Newsbytes. If you think you are plugged in now - with
your Internet connection, your wireless phone and your Palm Pilot -just wait until 2025. By then, say experts at Bell Labs, the research arm of Lucent Technologies Inc. [NYSE:LU], you'll be wired into a global communications network through devices as small as a lapel pin.
What's more, they say, that global network will be more like a "communications skin" capable of sensing everything from weather patterns to how much milk is in your refrigerator.
"We are already building the first layer of a mega-network that will cover the entire planet like a skin," Bell Labs President Arun Netravali said today in a document loaded with prognostications from lab staff. "As communication continues to become faster, smaller, cheaper and smarter in the next millennium, this skin, fed by a constant stream of information, will grow larger and more useful."
Netravali said that "skin" will include millions of electronic measuring devices - thermostats, pressure gauges, pollution detectors, cameras, microphones - all monitoring cities, roadways, and the environment.
"All of these will transmit data directly into the network, just as our skin transmits a constant stream of sensory data to our brains," he said. "Such systems might be used for anything from constantly monitoring the traffic on a local road, water level in a river to the temperature at the beach or the supply of food in a refrigerator."
Bell Labs spokeswoman Wendy Zajack told Newsbytes that the
predictions for the future of communications technology were
released, in part, to mark the approaching Millennium. In addition, she said, with Bell Labs facing its 75th anniversary, the prognostications underscore the organization's reputation for "brain power."
And that's no idle boast. Bell Labs researchers have garnered at least two Nobel Prizes in physics (including one in 1956 for the 1947 discovery of the laser). Zajack notes that Bell Labs, bundled with Lucent when that company was spun off from AT&T Corp. [NYSE:T] in 1996, files applications for more than three patents a day and
has more than 30,000 inventions to it credit since it was formed 75 years ago.
Netravali said some recent breakthroughs at Bell Labs, particularly in areas that are boosting bandwidth and reducing the size of electronic components, will help bring about their vision of communications in the new Millennium.
Noting that Bell Labs researchers recently demonstrated the first long-distance (300 kilometer) transmission of data at a trillion bits per second over a single strand of optical fiber, Netravali said that, in 10 years, a single fiber will carry a quadrillion, bits per second.
"This will put nearly limitless amounts of bandwidth at users' fingertips," the document stated. "It is this plentiful and inexpensive bandwidth that will enable high-quality videoconferencing and faster, 'always-on' Internet connections in the next century."
Netravali said the huge bandwidth will be able to support the massive amount of data required for all the devices wired to the global communication "skin" to communicate as machine-to-machine and object-to-object communication increases. By 2010, he said, the
volume of this "infrachatter" will actually surpass communication between humans.
"At home, your dishwasher will be able to call its manufacturer when it is malfunctioning and the manufacturer will run diagnostics remotely," Netravali said. "Or your lawn sprinkler could check the
Web site of the National Weather Service before turning itself on,
to make sure the forecast doesn't call for rain."
The Bell Labs researchers said waiting by the phone, surfing the Internet, and face-to-face business meetings will go the way of eight-track tapes.
"Software-driven intelligent networks and wireless technology will enable people to be reached wherever they are and will give the consumer the power to choose if a message will be an e-mail, voice mail or video clip," said Rich Howard, wireless research director.
Joseph Olive, director of language modeling, said system-on-a-chip technology that will lead to communications devices - "metaphones"- the size of jewelry that will be voice operated.
"Dialing a phone will be a concept learned only in history
classes," he said. "Placing a call to mom will be as simple as saying 'Mom.' The small metaphones on your lapel will be able to read Web sites and e-mail to you."
Raju Rishi, strategy director of product management, said advances in videoconferencing and high-speed networking will lead to a rise in telecommuting to virtual offices and to virtual business travel as well.
"Combined with directional microphones, surround-sound audio, and 3-D (three-dimensional) images, the effect is much closer to that of a face-to-face meeting," Rishi said, adding that, as the technology grows more immersive, there will be no need for business colleagues to gather in one place.
Kenan Sahin, Bell Labs vice-president of software technology, said the Internet will be transformed from a cache of data to a smarter "HiQNet" in which personal "cyberclones" will anticipate humans'information requirements.
"This HiQNet, which will be as immediate as dial tone is today, will be so integral to our lives it will become practically invisible," the document said. "People will use anything from a TV to a wireless lapel phone for access."
Said Sahin: "The first communication revolution of the 20th Century gave us telephone-based communications. The second gave us computer-based communications like e-mail and the Internet. The 21st Century will bring us a knowledge-based communications revolution.
"We will be able to get expert help for everything from sending baby photos to our family to finding the perfect job. That same network intelligence may also save people money. You'll be able to say to your communications device, 'I want to talk to Bob in Chicago,' and the device will get you the best deal on the connection.
"The Internet will evolve from being a complexity in our lives that we have to spend time mastering, to a behind-the-scenes tool that will improve our quality of life," Sahin said. "In the end, (it will) make us more human, not less."
Reported by Newsbytes.com, newsbytes.com |
