RFID, Wireless, and XML

The three fairly new technologies of RFID, wireless, and XML are being integrated into home devices more and more and hold promise for advanced automation and lifestyle enhancement. Manufacturing and distribution applications already use RFID, and retail producers are starting to exploit its capabilities. The wireless computer networking in homes today (a number that grows daily) almost begs for other electronic products to join the networking fabric. XML is providing a mechanism for devices to expose their data in simple-to-understand and easily exploitable ways.

We believe that, ultimately, RFID tags will replace the ubiquitous UPC codes of today. Cell phones and PDAs equipped with RFID readers already enhance the consumer shopping experience. (Nokia and other manufacturers produce models with built-in RFID readers, primarily for field use in various service industries; these manufacturers are experimenting with in-store consumer retail information, too.) RFID tags come in a variety of forms and costs. The early tags were relatively bulky and cost up to a few dollars eachfar too expensive for anything other than products or equipment with commensurately high price tags. However, large retailers such as Wal-Mart expect the technology to produce tags that cost pennies each and be tiny enough to be affixed to or embedded within just about anything. We fully expect RFID tags to be used on or in clothing, electronic appliances, toys, cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, and so on. The tags will also be part of any boxed food item. The RFID readers are more expensive and, as a result, will initially be found in the more expensive appliances in our home, such as washing machines and refrigerators. So, step one, having nearly everything being able to identify itself, is on its way.

Step two is allowing the data buried in objects to be extracted. Wireless networking will be key to the Inescapable Data home. Our love of the Internet drove computer networks into the home. Once they were there, we learned the value of wireless networks and the ability to stay connected almost anywhere. Wireless home networks are now penetrating an ever-increasing number of homes for general computer use, and now provide that missing backbone for home automation. It is expected that more than 50 million homes will have wireless home networks by 2007.^[1] Although inexpensive by computer pricing standards, ordinary 802.11b wireless networking is likely too expensive to be added to tiny appliances, such as blenders (but may be perfectly suitable for more expensive items, such as refrigerators and washing machines). Bluetooth and other short-range schemes will offer more affordable solutions eventually, making home wireless networks truly pervasive, carrying data to and from nearly every electrified object in the living space.

^[1] http://news.com.com/Study:+Wi-Fi+weaving+its+way+into+homes/2100-73513-5136533.html.

Bluetooth

What is Bluetooth? Bluetooth^[2] is a short-range wireless technology typically designed to span a distance of no more than 30 feet. Bluetooth is already in use by various cell phones to allow simpler hands-free communication to microphones and speakers. Some MP3 players use Bluetooth for wire-free ear buds. It can be used between PDAs and printers or GPS receivers and cell phones, and so forth.

Bluetooth is a radio-wave technology (like wireless Ethernet and cordless phones) and as such is not encumbered by line-of-sight issues that hamper other short-range communication technologies, such as infrared. It is designed to consume little power and can be implemented at low cost owing to the fact that its communication range is limited. Today, more than one billion suitable devices exist in the United States alone (cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players, gaming devices, and so on) that are targets for Bluetooth enablement, which will drive the volume-price curve downward. Worldwide adoption will drive the volume-price curve down ever further. As with any technology, it can take years before the adoption becomes pervasive. Bluetooth was first created in 1994, and now more than a decade later, we finally see accelerated deployment. Bluetooth may or may not be the final technology for less-than-Ethernet type of connectivity; some other sort of short-range wireless technology most surely might become prevalent and enable a new level of untetheredness in our lives.

^[2] The name is taken from the tenth-century Danish King Harald Blatand. Blatand is translated as Bluetooth in English. King Blatand was instrumental in uniting warring factions in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. In a similar way, the technology Bluetooth attempts to unite various manufacturers and industries in computing, cellular phones, and large-scale devices such as automobile.

Wireless provides the physical connection layer (so to speak). Step three, XML, provides the glue at the logical information layer. With XML, we no longer have to wait for costly developers to write specialty applications to exploit the pervasive physical connectivity and the data pervasive devices can generate. The "data" emitted will be easy for us to understand. We can use each other and leverage standard tools and technology because the "data" inside these various devices is easily readable by virtue of XML and easily utilizable by our wireless networks. These three technologies were not available just a few short years ago, but soon they will be prevalent. The combination of them will enable us to perform some exciting time-saving and life-enhancing tasks.

Whirlpool

Whirlpool has a new oven, the Polara, which is also a refrigerator controllable via a cell phone.^[3] In the morning, you toss the lasagna in and set the device to keep it cool throughout the day. If the afternoon soccer game runs late or you get stuck in traffic, use your cell phone to dial up your refrigerator-oven to alter the start time of the cook cycle. This is not quite the Inescapable Data way (although we are pleased that values are being understood). Somewhat like the faulty start of the home-automation industry, such devices are stop gaps until pervasive networks take hold.

In the coming pervasive world, it will not take a specialty device or a specialty phone call. Your PDA will have full access to all of your appliances naturally by virtue of XML and standard networking, and it will not matter whether you're in the living room or in Hawaii (because of the ubiquity of Internet connectivity). Already, we can be at work or on vacation and perform personal electronic banking and electronic trading transactions merely by having access to the Web. In any case, the fact that Whirlpool and other manufacturers are making such "connected" products is a positive sign, and such developments will help drive toward the bigger vision of seamless interconnectivity.

^[3] Boston Globe, June 7, 2004.