Embedded Systems Conference Spring, a trade show opening Monday morning at McCormick Place, features the Midwest debut of a hot new industry that calls itself ubiq.
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That’s not a typographical error; it’s your future.
Coined by researchers at Xerox Corp.’s Palo Alto Research Center, ubiq stands for ubiquitous computing.
It means computers everywhere, hundreds if not thousands of tiny computers burned into chips of silicon and embedded in the skein of interconnected gadgets, appliances and intelligent devices that are becoming, as the term says, ubiquitous in American life.
A proliferation of ubiq technologies are reaching the mass marketplace. They fulfill the predictions of ubiq gurus like Xerox’s Mark Weiser, who share a vision of networking together the larger computers in people’s lives and extending that home network into virtually every nook and cranny of those lives.
Ubiq evangelists foresee a home landscape littered with batches of interconnected small computers, each designed to perform a different task as its part of the master network.
Sometimes it’s as simple as using your Pentium to turn on the coffee pot just before your alarm rings. Other times it’s building a family computer intranet that links each room in the home with every other room and then reaches out via the Internet to link the house with its owners’ desktops at work.
This isn’t science fiction. Here’s what’s on the market right now:
– The automatic networked television camera from IBM that snaps a still of your latchkey kids when they open the living room door after school and sends the snapshot to your office as an e-mail attachment to ease your mind
– The gadgets from Utah-based Intelogis Inc. that you plug into the outlets to turn your home’s electrical wiring into a high-speed network, your own Internet-connected version of a business’ local area network, or LAN.
– Very similar gadgets from Compaq Computer Corp. that network computers in your home using telephone wiring rather than electrical wires.
– The pager-size device from Diamond Multimedia called Rio that replaces your personal CD music player by storing two hours worth of tunes in digital MP3 format that you download from the Internet every morning while the coffee brews.
– The 4-ounce 3Com Palm that you keep in your shirt pocket that can hold the names and addresses of 6,000 people and share them with all of the computers in your house and, by Internet connections, with the computers where you work
Ubiq already is very big business and it’s getting bigger by the day.
Hector de J. Ruiz, president of the semiconductor products sector of Schaumburg-based Motorola Inc., an Embedded Systems conference keynote speaker, predicted an “explosion of demand, ability and possibilities” of the tiny embedded computers that already account for $8 billion in annual Motorola revenues and occupy 45,000 members of its workforce.
Rick Thompson, director of direct and relationship marketing at IBM, explained that America’s largest computer company waded into the ubiq area of networking home computers and house automation after finding that consumers wanted much more than just a machine to let the children do homework and the parents Web surf and do e-mail.
“Our research,” Thompson said, “was showing us that people were buying a home computer on the expectation that it would change their lives in a fundamental way.
“They would tell themselves, `I have to have a computer because it’s the wave of the future. It was going to give my kids a competitive advantage. It was going to keep me in control of my life. It was going to make my life more productive.’
“But when people finally get that computer, there is, to some degree, a letdown. They say, `What is it doing to really change my life?’ “
So, said Thompson, IBM has launched Home Director Professional, a system of computers and other devices that connect virtually every appliance in a home and use a network of home computers to run things.
The system starts with installing wiring in new houses or renovated ones, using a bundle of Ethernet computer networking wires and television coaxial cable to connect every room.
Computer-connected on/off switches control every light, lamp and appliance, and the home network wiring allows one to quickly plug any computer or any sound or video device into a universal plug in any room.
With the controlling computers connected to the Internet, this system lets people communicate with their homes from their desks at work as well as through remote controls or computer screens at home.
Because the home becomes what businesses call a local area network connected to a larger wide area network through the Internet, the new systems allow far more than just turning on and off the lights to discourage burglars.
For openers, images from home-security television cameras, VCRs, cable boxes and other sources can be viewed from throughout the house or even over the Internet.
One part of this system, Thompson said, is the feature to snap a photo from the home-security system and e-mail it to an anxious mother or father at work.
In early February IBM and Bell Atlantic Corp. said they will team up to install this type of full networking in as many as 15,000 new houses in Bell Atlantic’s Maine-to-Virginia service region.
Bell Atlantic’s construction unit will use IBM computers, switching devices, software and other products and will wire the homes to include telephone and cable television service as well as interconnecting devices, Bell Atlantic spokesman Mark Marchand told the Reuters wire service.
“We’re in the middle of a digital explosion, and a growing number of Americans are discovering the convenience and safety of home systems,” said Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association, or CEMA. “Home-security system sales are projected to be $1.65 billion in 1999, a 49 percent increase over the past five years. Other home-system products are showing even stronger sales growth.”
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A preview of some the new wrinkles for ubiq that will be featured at the Chicago Embedded Systems Show came at CEMA’s January Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where the emphasis was on the more futuristic aspects of the tiny computer systems.
“Home networking means a lot of different things,” argued David Coursey, an Internet journalist and columnist for Upside magazine, as he sat in his Digital Living Room Exhibit. “To Compaq, home networking is sharing an Internet connection among three or four computers, all of which are just plugged into the phone line–and they’re not using the dial tone to do it. For the home-automation environment, it means having your security system come on, turning on the lights when you’re away, having your energy automatically monitored.
“The home-automation equipment is just one component of a home network, which also might include computers, printers, your cable box and your DBS (satellite television) system. As bandwidth increases, and as the power of computing increases, it is going to show up in people’s homes.”
CEMA’s Shapiro points out, “As more computers now are being sold to people who already have them, rather than going into new homes, the question becomes, `How do you hook up the computers within your home so that you don’t have to buy a new printer, or you can have them talk to each other?’ There are a lot of products coming to the market like that.”
Not surprisingly, Microsoft was one of the companies promoting home networking at Consumer Electronics Show. At a well-attended technology seminar, senior vice president Craig Mundie explained some of the ways Windows software could be extended to connect “smart” household appliances, computer devices and other high-tech gadgets inside and outside the home. Mundie introduced the company’s Universal Plug and Play concept as a potential rival to Sun Microsystem Inc.’s previously announced Jini networking project.
In his address, Mundie showed how a consumer could use a palm-size computer’s infrared reader to download recipes, coupons and nutritional information at a supermarket, then–after a stop at the checkout counter–transfer the information to a LCD “tablet” screen back home on the refrigerator. The screen also would serve as a convenient in-home information hub for the family–even a place to display digital photos.
Eventually, any “smart object” that contains a processor or computer chip will be connectable to another device or appliance, and then to a PC, laptop or handheld computer.
Enikia Inc., of Piscataway, N.J., is one of the companies working to solve an existing communications problem within the home.
At its tiny booth in the North Hall of the convention center, executives explained how its newly introduced technology would convert common household power lines to home networks that operate at the 10 megabits-per-second speed of ethernet. This would allow computers, cable and DSL modems, peripherals and consumer-electronics devices to be interconnected, as well as serve as a host for Internet, telephony and communications services that can be distributed to the home networks.
“What we make is a chip set that actually takes ethernet networking and puts it over the power line in your home,” explained William K. Simons, Enikia’s vice president for sales. “We’re trying to do for a home network what the guys who do the plumbing for your water system are doing. If you have plumbing, you can have all sorts of great things–washing machines, dishwashers, Jacuzzis–but, if it doesn’t work, none of it is worthwhile.”
As for the nag factor in all this intrahome communication, Simons offered a scenario in which a manufacturer of water heaters might introduce diagnostics that could identify problem spots in its product. Using an ethernet transceiver and the Internet, a warranty provider would be alerted when service was needed, and the customer would be given advance notice.
“It could issue a warning before the water heater went out, not when it’s 6 a.m. and you need to use the shower,” he said. “The company would send an e-mail over the Internet, saying, `These are the parameters and you may get a call from your plumber, who could schedule a repair.’ Same thing with your refrigerator or any other appliance.
“That’s when home networking becomes integrated into everyday life.”
Or, as they’re saying at McCormick Place, ubiq.