A bullish and well written article about future internet from WSJ
Companies Gear Up for a Boom
In Appliances That Use the
Internet
By THOMAS E. WEBER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The Internet has exploded. From a few
hundred thousand computers in 1993, the
global network now totals 120 million
computers and rising. No wonder: By letting
computers talk with one another, the
Internet makes each machine smarter.
You haven't seen anything yet.
Never mind PCs and mainframes. Think
photocopiers, refineries, heart monitors,
cameras -- and just about anything else that
can hold a computer chip. Plug a
constellation of devices into the Internet and
the myriad gadgets of everyday life will get
smarter and more useful. When people hook
up their PCs to the Web, they transform
glorified typewriters into windows on a world
of information. The Internet can do the same
for countless other things and forge new
bonds with customers at the same time, a
growing number of companies believe.
Umbilical Cords and Mother Lodes
Developers see air conditioners that can turn
themselves on in response to an e-mail
message zapped before you leave your
office. Everything from a car to a dishwasher
could monitor itself, sending out electronic
pleas for help when something malfunctions
and preventing the repairman from showing
up with the wrong parts. Connected to the
Internet's digital umbilical cord, marketers
could tap a mother lode of data about the
ways their products are used and beam out
new instructions that would update the
features of toys and VCRs.
In factories, offices, classrooms, hospitals
and laboratories, devices stand to be
similarly transformed. Companies already are
thinking of the day when they will have
vending machines that call out over the
Internet for a refill of ginger ale and security
systems that enable someone to let visitors
into a workplace from 1,000 miles away.
To Nicholas Negroponte, chief guru at the
famed Media Lab at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, the rise of gadgets
on the Internet signals a whole new era of
computing. There were mainframe
computers in the 1960s and minicomputers
in the '70s, he notes, followed by personal
computers in the '80s and the Internet in the
'90s. Now, says Mr. Negroponte, the new
thing is "things," as any sort of device with a
microprocessor is wired to the Net. "Things
that think want to link."
Of course, some products will get smarter
before others, with goods for well-wired
offices leading the way. Right now, most
home users connect to the Net by dialing in
over a standard telephone connection, and
there aren't enough phone jacks to fit every
VCR and coffee maker. Demand for some
Net-enabled devices may not justify their
costs, either. If security measures aren't
strong enough, the newly linked-up gadgets
could also be vulnerable to attack and raise
privacy concerns.
Getting the Goods
But some products have already arrived.
Sharp Electronics Corp. has a stereo that
downloads music from the Web through a PC.
The device costs $1,100, and Sharp expects
the stereo will appeal mostly to
businesspeople who want to download
recordings of seminars and speeches.
Snap-on Inc. lets customers update its
car-engine analyzers over the Internet.
General Electric Co. uses the Internet to
check on factory equipment thousands of
miles away. Big consumer-goods makers
such as Whirlpool Corp. are mulling Internet
applications for their products.
"It's very simple. What level of interaction do
you have with your products and customers,
and what would be the ultimate?" says Lou
Lenzi, vice president at Thomson Consumer
Electronics Inc. in Naperville, Ill. "If, say, a
white-goods manufacturer isn't thinking
about Web-enabling their washers and
dryers, he should. Every one of those devices
will let them talk directly to their consumer."
Thomson, which makes consumer products
under the RCA brand, is examining Net
hookups for VCRs and TV sets.
Technology companies that can help
manufacturers put their products on-line
could reap the riches. Behemoths such as
Sun Microsystems Inc., which sees its Java
computer language as a fundamental part of
the move to Internet devices, are in pursuit,
as are a number of start-up companies
making products specifically for
Internet-linked things.
'How Will We Hook This Up?'
Internet gadgets began in the late 1980s in
Xerox Corp.'s Palo Alto, Calif., Research
Center, the fabled birthplace of the computer
mouse and the software that inspired the
Apple Macintosh. A PARC scientist named
Mark Weiser began promoting a concept
called ubiquitous computing by embedding
tiny electronic brains in all sorts of devices
and putting them on a single network. One, a
coffee machine that sends out computer
messages telling office mates a new pot is
ready, still brews away in the PARC offices.
Mr. Weiser, now PARC's chief technologist,
recalls thinking that the gadgets were great,
but impractical. "We knew what the problem
was: How are we going to hook all this stuff
up together?" Now that the Internet has
caught fire among businesses and
consumers and microprocessor prices have
continued a steady fall, he sees a compelling
economic argument for Net gizmos.
The main argument is based on lower costs.
Whirlpool spends about $50 on each
warranty service call, notes Ralph F. Hake,
the company's chief financial officer. A
dishwasher that can tell technicians what
part it needs "has tremendous economic
benefit," he says. While some of his
appliances would have to undergo major
redesigns to carry internal Net links, and
right now only 20% of U.S. homes have any
kind of Internet access, he says the potential
savings mean "there are things that need to
be explored here."
Unlike most homes, many offices are wired
for full access, and new uses are starting to
flourish. Johnson Controls Inc. has built-in
Internet options in the systems it sells for
controlling heat, air-conditioning and other
services in office buildings. That way, a
building-maintenance chief can run the
system from any computer on the Net, and a
budget cop can check on the building's
energy-consumption patterns. The newest
Document Centre copiers from Xerox have
internal gear that lets an office worker use
Web-browser software to call up a status
report on the machine's health. A Xerox
service person can give the copier a checkup
without having to visit the customer site,
possibly even correcting a glitch over the
Net.
Security Concerns
Just one hitch: Many companies keep their
Internet-based networks carefully cordoned
off from the global Net by a series of security
barriers that check the flow of information in
and out of the office. Xerox customers may
not like letting outsiders such as a copier
repairman into their home network.
And who wants some rogue hacker ordering
the copier to crank out 10,000 blank pages,
or a linked-up dishwasher catching a
suds-erupting virus off the Internet? Privacy
concerns arise, too, over marketers that
could use the Internet to spy on how often
families raid the fridge, or whether that new
VCR is running a lot of X-rated videos.
Technologists say encryption and other
security techniques will protect customers.
They also note that consumers used to be
fearful of transmitting their credit-card
numbers over the Web. Now, people run up
hundreds of millions of dollars in purchases
at Amazon.com and other Web retailers.
The Net-thing movement also has
implications for the world of medicine.
Already, Hewlett-Packard Co. makes
equipment that lets a Web-surfing doctor
check electrocardiogram results via the Net,
with security barriers that block
unauthorized peeping. Vital-sign monitors
that work over the Internet from both
hospital and home will be next, at what
developers say will be a cost of just a few
extra bucks for each existing device.
Some of the most powerful consequences of
hooking things up to the Internet will
probably come as information starts flowing
in both directions. Right now, many of the
uses envisioned for Net gadgets involve a
product's maker sucking data from the
customer's location. But manufacturers can
also use the Internet to push new features
into the unit, promising to improve products
even after they have been sold.
The information that companies download on
how their products are actually used in the
home will change the way products are
designed and marketed. In some cases,
customers will actively work for the
company as product developers.
Child Programmers
Next month, toy maker Lego Group AS of
Denmark will begin shipping a building-block
set, called Mindstorms, that was developed
in conjunction with Mr. Negroponte's Media
Lab. It blends a computer brain with
traditional Lego building blocks to let
children build robotic toys. Children also can
plug the product into a PC and download new
commands from a Mindstorms Web site,
increasing the number of things a toy can do.
As they become skilled, children can post
their own software creations on the Web site
for others to try -- increasing the capability of
a Lego item, at no cost to the company.
Once all manner of things are conjoined, they
will also start talking to one another.
emWare Inc., a Salt Lake City start-up, has
created a prototype of this idea, with a
lawn-sprinkler system that hooks up to the
Internet. A homeowner at work can tell it to
turn on, via the Web, and the sprinkler itself
could automatically query the Web site of the
National Weather Service to make sure the
forecast doesn't call for rain.
"It's still just a sprinkler, a simple device,"
says emWare technical chief Chris Sontag.
"But now it's more intelligent."
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