December 2009 Archives

As you can see from my other entries, one of my passions is finding new examples of Digital Swarms in action.  Two user-driven services that have become very popular are Trapster (www.trapster,com) and Urban Spoon (www.urbanspoon.com).  Trapster provides an updated view of speed traps all over the world.  It has even added a recent feature that include real-time feedback from other users on the location of police on the road.  Urban Spoon offers updated restaurant info and ratings (mostly from other eaters) in your location with a quick navigation/search feature especially tailored to mobile users.  Both of these applications gain there true value from the network of mobile participants that can add real-time content.  Especially in the case of Trapster, this real-time sensing by the group can provide real benefit to the user (maybe not in the eyes of the poilice!). 

As phones become smarter and higher speed 4G networks roll out, you can envision rich media exchanges among the network such updated photos of police locations, the signal strength of police radars plotted on a map, virtual tours of restaurants and what each meal looks like, and possibly even interviews with servers!  This may all sound a bit crazy, but ultimately, users will determine which applications survive (as they do today in the appstore model), not carriers or content owners.  It is this user-centric power that will unlock more Digital Swarms in the future. Continue Reading...

M2M does not only apply to exotic applications like environmental monitoring, precision farming, and supply chain automation.  It is also starting to improve basic routine tasks.  I have mentioned in my book, The New World of Wireless: How to Compete in the 4G Revolution (http://www.whartonsp.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=013700379X) an example of the mousetraps in Wembley Stadium being by Rentokil (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07129/784423-294.stm) connected via a wireless sensor network to save the maintenance crew a trip until a mouse is in the trap (truly a killer app!).  I recently read of an example of trash cans in Sommerville, Mass, are able to send an SMS message when they are full and ready to be picked up (http://www.wirelessweek.com/Articles/2009/12/Predictions-2010/ ).  The fuel and labor savings potential of these types of simple M2M applications is tremendous.  The limitations in the past have been economics and the lack of open standards (these two are highly related).  With a range of options such as SMS, Zigbee, WiFi, WiMax, and cellular, price points are coming down and more applications are becoming viable.  The deployment of LTE will only fuel this further by providing a true "wireless cloud" for distributed sensor networks to plug into.  With the first LTE deployments happening last week in Sweden by Teliasonera and Norway by Netcom (http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=9008F793-1A64-6A71-CE885F8A2D4A8163 , the road is being paved for a new wave of M2M innovation and the Digital Swarm. Continue Reading...

I just came across two great example of people using their cellphones to sense the environment.  One is illegal immigrants trying to cross the border using an application that provides the best recommended path across the border given their position (http://futurismic.com/2009/12/04/cellphone-app-could-help-illegal-immigrants/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+futurismic_feed+%28Futurismic+-+the+fact+and+fiction+of+tomorrow%29)  Today this is simply based on terrain maps, but much like Garmin and TomTom, these will evolve to include real-time updates from aother illegal immigrants that relay the position of security forces and other relevant information to increase their chance of success.  The other example I picked up was a NASA scientist developing a chemical sensor that can be plugged directly into an iPhone (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/features/2009/cell_phone_sensors.html) This obviously has enormous implications for homeland security, but could also open up a whole new set of applications for everything from factory process monitoring by workers to air quality monitoring by people.  Could you imagine being able to tell  an airline how bad the air quality on the plane really is and report it to other users?  Or individuals monitoring CO2 levels in different regions to monitor the effects of climate change?  The power of this will come when billions of users have these types of sensors in their device and can act as a giant sensing network around the globe to relay important information to improve security and the quality of life.  This would be a great example of the collective power of Digital Swarms as I discuss in my book (http://www.whartonsp.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=9780137003792) Continue Reading...