The aroma of fresh coffee wafts through the apartment. The alarm clock by thebedside softly plays music and says “Miranda wake up, Miranda you must leave earlytoday.”
It did this after checking road conditions on the Internet and deciding the morningdrive will take longer due to road works. It then carries out it’s usual functions 30minutes early, like starting the coffee machine.
“Clock, I’m awake,” says Miranda. “PDA, What have I got on today?”
“You have a nine o’clock appointment with the Finance Committee, your afternoon isfree. I have e-mailed the office advising you maybe late. There is a hold up on thehighway.” replies the PDA.
Troy rolls over as Miranda hits the shower, he is working from home. Miranda’s driveto work is not wasted. As the vehicle guides itself down Highway 1, she watches thenews on the dashboard Internet screen and uses her laptop to check her report for themeeting.
In the evening Miranda arrives home to find Troy scanning the groceries and puttingthem away. They were ordered automatically by the fridge and have just beendelivered.
“What’s for tea?” she asks.
“The fridge recommends steak and salad, there’s a recipe on the screen for Waldorfsalad. It suggests we use the apples up as they’ve been there for a week.”
“Sounds good to me,” Miranda says as Troy gets out the steak and apples and swipesthe barcodes across the reader. The fridge does a quick check and decides it needsto order more steak.
Not quite the Jetsons but reality is catching up with fiction. You can get this e-stufftoday. Making some of it possible are two technologies, Bluetooth and Thalia.
Bluetooth eliminates the cables connecting appliances together. A micro chip with abuilt-in radio allows appliances within a 10 metre range to talk to each other atspeeds of 6Mb/s. Over 2000 companies are rushing to get the technology to you. By2002 Bluetooth will be everywhere.
According to Bluetooth you will soon be using a three-in-one phone. Athome, it will be a portable phone. Leave home and it becomes a cell phone. When itis within range of another Bluetooth phone it’s a walkie talkie. Your cell phone willallow you to surf the Internet wherever you are. Best of all, Bluetooth will allowautomatic synchronisation of your desktop, laptop, PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)and your cell phone. So, as soon as you come in range of your desktop all addresseswill be updated in your PDA and phone numbers kept up to date in your cell phone.
Thalia is a joint effort between Sun Microsystems and Sunbeam. Home appliances will be able to communicate using your house electrical wiring.
The smart fridge is available from Electolux.
Several universities are working to produce driverless cars. The University of Arizonaexplains it’s attempt and links to some others sites. The National Automated Highway System (NAHS) in the USA is described here.
Site Of The Week
Coolblue – An Auckland radio station that you can also hear on the Net.The playlist as I write is an eclectic mix including Frank Sinatra, Tracy Chapman, and John Coltrane. Listen, enjoy, even e-mail and ask them to broadcast in Wellington as well.
