The technology of the future may seem like science fiction, but it’s more than just talk, writes David Shapshak
In the home of the future, people will talk to the walls. And the walls will listen. You’ll walk into your home, it will greet you, turn on the lights, select your current favourite music or TV channel. Talking to your home, or to the computers that are embedded in the architecture, will become as commonplace as yelling at the TV during a rugby match or a soapie.
It may seem like science fiction, but the technology already exists for communicating with computers by voice. Voice recognition is one of the next big things coming our way in the new millennium – the killer app (application), as the computer industry terms next big things.
The humble mouse and the desktop- computer screen interface – the “holy entrance to cyberspace” as Norbert Streitz of Germany’s National Information Technology Research Institute puts it – will remain for a while, but the integration of technology with architecture is likely to become seamless. Computers, and a vast array of sensors, from motion detectors and cameras, will be embedded in the structure of the building.
In the “intelligent room” developed by Michael Coen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s artificial intelligence department, you can walk around and interact with each other, smiling, frowning or making gestures as you normally would. The computer’s job is to interpret these signals and work out what they mean in case it might be able to help in any given situation. “If I lose my keys in the intelligent room, I’d some day simply like to ask the room where I left them,” Coen says.
Researchers at IBM’s Thomas Watson Research Centre have developed a “visualisation space” combining the company’s own ViaVoice continuous voice-recognition programme with a wall-sized three-dimensional display and motion-tracking systems. You can control the images displayed on screen simply by speaking or gesturing. Connected to a supercomputer via a high-speed network, it’ll allow you to interact intuitively with enormous databases such as geoseismic (earthquake) data.
“I believe that computers can be designed from the ground up to be as easy and natural to use as, say, talking to your best friend, your mom or your cactus,” says team leader Mark Lucente. “Deviceless natural interfaces are useful (and fun) for a wide range of systems: embedded into your car; embedded into a desktop or workbench; embedded into your kitchen or living room; or embedded into the tabletop at your favourite caf or diner.” Expect this in about five to 10 years.
In the meantime, for those of us still using clunky boxes on desks, there are plans afoot to make them more effective, as hardware technology bounds forward. The next big thing in shops at the moment is the universal service bus, an input/output plug in your computer that allows you to plug- and-play numerous devices (scanners, printers, joysticks) while the computer is running and reducing a variety of consumer problems. It will eventually replace the variety of jacks or “ports” at the back of the machine, each one designed for different peripherals.
Next, you’ll be linking all the computers in your house or small office together with good old copper. Eleven high-technology companies including IBM, Lucent and Compaq announced this year that they’re teaming up to develop standards for systems that transmit data at high speeds over the copper telephone wiring inside most houses and apartments.
Prodded by the computer industry, the telephone and cable television industries have been rushing to develop ways to link homes to cyberspace at speeds that far exceed those possible using today’s modems.
A few years after these home LANs (local area networks, the name given to the most common way computers are linked together) are de rigueur, the cables linking your computer to its keyboard, mouse, screen and modem will fall by the wayside, replaced by infra-red links. This system is already used with some computers to print to printers with infra-red ports.
It is also gaining popularity with the mobile cowboy, who can use a cellphone (such as the Ericsonn 788 that has a built-in modem and an infra-red port) to “see” a laptop computer and dial up the Internet.
Ultimately, though, your household will be wired with micro-cells. Much like present cellular systems where your cellphone “logs” on to a beacon, these devices will run a small, closed- circuit cell in your home, linking your computer, TV, hi-fi and other hardware. Think of it as infra-red that doesn’t need to be pointed directly at the target (as a TV remote must be within line of sight of the TV).
A similar system of cells for telephones, known as Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications, is being used by Telkom in rural areas to provide telephone access.
Your telephone will also be your Internet terminal, allowing you not only video conferencing with your friends but the ability to send and receive e-mail and do rudimentary Web surfing. These phones are already commercially available in South Africa. That’s if you decide you’d prefer to get your e-mail via a small screen (about 15cm) instead of routing your telephone through your television, as will be shortly possible.
Couch potatoes will be able to watch TV, while talking to their friends on the phone or seeing their images on the screen at the same time.
A deal has been struck by Cisco Systems, one of the world’s largest suppliers of Internet systems, and Pace Micro Technology, maker of set-top decoder boxes needed to convert today’s analogue TV sets into digital receivers. Pace makes the decoders used by South Africa’s pay satellite service, DStv.
With Cisco, Pace will develop a set-top decoder that handles TV programmes, Internet data and telephone services. Householders will plug their phones into the set-top box instead of the conventional wall-mounted jack.
This TV-phone and other verbal communication will increasingly be done over the Internet, using a system known as voice-over-IP (Internet protocol).
This will foreseeably bring the era of costly long-distance telephone calls to an end, as all calls will be routed through a local computer which home dial-up users would connect to on a local call. The clarity of calls may not equal that of conventional phones, but it won’t be long before they do – especially with big industry players like IBM, Lucent Technologies and Siemens involved in developing the “gateways” or links between the computer systems and the phone networks.
And while voice-over-IP will be a major threat to the revenue streams of large telecommunications companies, so will the burgeoning satellite communication systems above us. This year Iridium went live, the first of several planned networks that give complete global coverage with pagers or handsets not much larger than cellphones, that can also log on to cellular networks.
Teledesic, an ambitious low-orbiting satellite network which counts Microsoft’s Bill Gates as a backer, is due to be operational early next millennium. It will offer a worldwide system of 288 satellites that make up an “Internet in the sky”, offering 64 Megabit per second downloads (about 2 000 times the speed of a standard modem) to anyone with a 50cm satellite dish.
Of course, if you move into a newly built suburb or residential area, the chances are the infrastructure for digital connectivity will be pre- installed. Cybervillages are on the increase. Walden Internet Village, a 12-building complex in Houston, Texas, for instance offers inhabitants their own unique Web address for each apartment, so residents can run their own websites from inside their flats with a 10 Mbit per second Internet connection.
Sooner or later, you won’t have to venture from this plush digital kingdom to do the weekly groceries – at Thrupps’s website you can order your groceries and they’ll be delivered for you. Online shopping is already gaining momentum for large purchases: at the moment you can buy anything from digital video disks (DVD) to computers (Dell, one of the largest manufacturers, sells $1-million worth of equipment per day through its online operations).
This Christmas has already been declared the first online extravaganza with online shopping said to have overtaken conventional shopping for the first time. Needless to say, sales of computer hardware and software withstood the economic downturn, price hikes and a traditionally slow third quarter to still increase by 31% from July to September over the same period last year, say information technology research specialists BMI-TechKnowledge.
Smart cards are likely to play a larger role than they do already. The first appearance of them is most probably going to be in the banking sector (FNB and Nedcor are pioneering the V.chip at the moment) and the taxi industry. The public health system could be another area of application – the German government uses them in this sector with great success.
For security, smart cards will have the user’s fingerprints or retina scan embedded on the card in barcode form. Finger readers will also gauge if the finger is hot, preventing criminals from hacking off the index finger of their intended victims, we hope.
But back in your home of the future you may get help from the ultimate digital assistant, a robot with arms and legs and increased dexterity, developed by Honda. P3, as the current prototype is known, can climb stairs, carry loads, push carts and, of course, bring you your slippers.
And if you go out and want to take your computer with you, you can carry it as personal computing shrinks to wearable computers. Hard drives the size of a portable CD player, a head-mounted screen that looks like a set of glasses and voice recognition as your system navigator were produced as prototypes this year. You’ll be able to dial up to the Internet by cellphone and read your e-mail on a tiny holographic screen only you can see.
So while people may think you are talking to yourself, you may be telling your walls at home to light the fire and record the game on TV.